THE TELEGRAPH: President Obama is losing friends - and the G20 will be a further test, writes Toby Harnden in Washington.
When he visited Europe last July, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, stood before 200,000 in Berlin's Tiergarten park to declare his "global citizenship" and call on the "people of the world" to "come together to save this planet". It was heady stuff, and the rapturous reception was one befitting a new political messiah after eight wilderness years. Back in the United States, the young senator ended his stump speeches with a vow to "change the world". Americans craved affection from abroad. Europeans were eager to fall in love.
But that was eight months ago, and the innocence of that summer has started to evaporate. Mr Obama has become the first black man to occupy the White House, but the world is in the grip of the worst economic depression since the Thirties, with no path back to prosperity in sight.
While the troop surge in Iraq that Mr Obama so vehemently opposed has succeeded beyond his imaginings, the "good war" he championed in Afghanistan is spiralling downwards and there are dark mutterings on the Left about it becoming his Vietnam.
For all the mutual goodwill, the transatlantic policy battle-lines are drawn. The Americans want additional economic stimulus measures to be taken across the globe. The Europeans are preoccupied with a supra-national financial regulation structure.
Mr Obama's demands for more European boots on the ground in Afghanistan have already been rejected by the French and Germans.
As the new American commander-in-chief embarks on his first extended foreign trip in Air Force One, stopping in London for the G20 summit, Strasbourg for a gathering of Nato, and going on to Prague, Ankara and Istanbul, the sheen is already wearing off his shiny new presidency at home.
The leak-proof, supremely well-organised campaign and the post-election transition that was hailed as being one of the smoothest in history are over. They have given way to an at times stumbling administration that struggles to fill the cabinet, botches its message and has all but abandoned the bipartisanship candidate Mr Obama promised.
Far from changing the world, Mr Obama has barely looked over his shoulder at it. The person he has entrusted his foreign policy to is Hillary Clinton, a bitter campaign rival whose diplomatic credentials he once mocked. To appoint her Secretary of State was perhaps an ominous sign, a move designed to keep her from challenging him domestically.
During his first, chaotic weeks in power, Mr Obama's focus has been almost entirely domestic. Key diplomatic posts remain empty. No ambassador is in place in London or Paris. Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, has grumbled that it has been almost impossible to organise next week's G20 summit in Docklands because White House officials are missing in action. "There is nobody there," he says. "You cannot believe how difficult it is." Can Obama Win Us Back? >>> Toby Harnden, Washington | Friday, March 27, 2009
