WASHINGTON — Stepping back onto the world stage, President Obama this week will meet Western Hemisphere leaders at a summit where he hopes to salvage alliances strained by grievances that the U.S. under former President Bush ignored Latin America because of Washington's focus on Iraq and terrorism.
Obama is a popular figure in the region and can expect an enthusiastic welcome. But he also will confront deep resentments over some U.S. policies that he is reluctant to change.
Other leaders want the administration to normalize relations with Cuba and resurrect a ban on the kinds of assault weapons being smuggled into Mexico, commitments Obama is unwilling to make.
Still, Obama is bound to get a better reception than his predecessor. Polls showed Bush to be the least popular American president ever among Latin Americans.
The last summit, held in Argentina four years ago, was widely considered a fiasco. Violent protests dominated the news. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez himself took part in an anti-American rally of 25,000 people.
"The new president is going to be the focus," said Julia Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. "Even for someone like Hugo Chavez, who at the last summit made himself the focus, it will be virtually impossible to upstage Barack Obama. This is his coming out party, his cotillion in the Americas, and there's an excitement just to meet the guy, see him up close and get a feel for him."
En route to the summit, Obama will stop in Mexico today to meet President Felipe Calderon.
At the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago beginning Friday, Obama will meet with 33 other democratically elected heads of state and government. Cuba, which does not have a democratically chosen leader, was the only country in the hemisphere not invited.
Obama is leaving the United States soon after an eight-day series of summits and meetings in Europe and Turkey.
Mindful that foreign travel in the midst of a recession is risky politics, Obama gave a well-publicized speech on the struggling economy this week, signaling that hemispheric affairs won't trump the downturn on his list of priorities.
John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster, said in an interview that Obama can't afford to leave the impression that he is consumed with foreign affairs.
"His reelection is going to hinge on economic recovery," McLaughlin said. "At some point, he has to show that he's making progress."
