President Barack Obama is in damage-control mode amid growing international anger over revelations that the United States has been snooping on its allies.

The problem followed the American president on his weeklong African visit, now in Tanzania where he spoke with reporters.  Regarding the revelations in Der Spiegel and The Guardian that the US has bugged European Union offices in Washington and beyond, Obama said that everybody does it.  The US President said that wherever there is a national intelligence service, there will be people trying to “understand the world better and what’s going on in capitals around the world from sources that aren’t available” through the mainstream media.

Tokyo will “strongly demand” an explanation from Washington about the US reportedly targeting at least 38 Japanese diplomats for eavesdropping, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

The revelations, from the cache of top-secret documents that NSA leaker Edward Snowden smuggled out of the US on his international flight from US law enforcers, are now threatening to poison the launch of major free-trade talks with Europe and the US.

French President Francoise Hollande says the talks could be called off unless stops spying on its friends.

“We cannot accept this kind of behavior between partners and allies,” said Hollande, “We ask that this stop immediately.  There can be no negotiations or transactions in all areas until we have obtained these guarantees, for France but also for all of the European Union.  We know well that there are systems that have to be checked, especially to fight terrorism, but I don't think that it is in our embassies or in the European Union that this threat exists.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was terse.

“We are no longer in the cold war," her spokesman Steffen Seibert said, “If it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the European Union and individual European countries have been spied upon, we will clearly say that bugging friends is unacceptable.”