Reference News Network reported on January 22 that Japan’s Daily News published a report entitled “Ex-Retreated Presidents of the United States” on January 18 that President Trump ended his four-year term on January 20.
What jobs do US presidents usually do after leaving office? The report will find answers from the experiences of several former presidents. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Life is rich and colorful.
Under the current institutional arrangement, the President of the United States will receive a pension of $220,000 a year after leaving office, which is equivalent to the salary level of current ministerial officials. In addition, all former presidents can enjoy the protection of secret service personnel for life.
The construction of a memorial library named by the previous president became a tradition after the 1940s. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 made the President’s files public property.
As long as you leave office for five years, the documents in the library will become the object of information disclosure, shouldering the heavy responsibility of telling history to future generations.
Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor and 44th President of the United States, established the Obama Foundation in 2014, during his tenure, to start the preparation of the library. The Obama Foundation is also involved in training young people and supporting regional activities.
Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush was also fascinated by painting.
He not only held exhibitions, but also published his own collection of paintings, from which the proceeds were mainly used to support charity activities. In a 2017 interview with local media, George W. Bush said that painting itself is a calming activity.
In addition, it is also customary for retired presidents to publish memoirs.
It is reported that Obama and his wife Michelle signed a $65 million publishing contract in 2017. In order to obtain the copyright of Clinton and George W. Bush’s memoirs, the publisher paid $15 million and $10 million respectively.
Seek a “resurreation”
Among the successive presidents, only the 22nd President Grover Cleveland was re-elected and successfully elected after leaving office. When he sought re-election in 1888, although the total number of votes exceeded that of Republican Benjamin Harrison, he was defeated by the small number of votes in the electoral college.
But after several years as a lawyer, Cleveland defeated Harrison in the 1892 presidential election.
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, also ran again after leaving office in 1909.
According to Article 22 of the Constitutional Amendment adopted in 1951, the term of office of the president is up to two eight years, but there is no limit when Roosevelt the Elder sought a third term.
In the 1912 presidential election, the Republicans chose to support then-President Taft to seek re-election, and Roosevelt Sr. separated from the Republican Party to run on behalf of the Progressive Party.
Although Roosevelt Sr. won 88 electoral college votes to defeat Taft, he lost to Woodrow Wilson, a profitable Democratic candidate.
Take the diplomatic stage
Carter has been praised for continuing to be active in the international diplomatic scene after retirement. During Carter’s tenure, Egypt and Israel, which had been exchanged four times of fire, established diplomatic relations.
The second year after leaving office, in 1982, Carter established the non-governmental organization “Carter Center” to participate in international conflict mediation, human rights and election monitoring activities.
During the 1994 U.S. study of an attack on North Korea’s nuclear facilities, Carter went to Pyongyang to meet Kim Il-sung. This created an opportunity for the negotiations between the United States and North Korea, and finally signed the United States and North Korea framework consensus in October of that year.
In May 2002, Carter visited Cuba, which had not established diplomatic relations with the United States at that time.
Clinton also began to participate in diplomatic mediation after leaving office in 2001.
After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, he served as the United Nations Special Envoy for Tsunami Relief, and in 2008, he served as the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti to help rebuild the Caribbean island country, which was hit hard by the hurricane.
