PORT-OF-SPAIN, TRINIDAD, AND TOBAGO — Foreign leaders have jostled to be in pictures with him and pressed for autographs.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who called the last U.S. president the "devil," gave Barack Obama a book on Latin America and clasped hands with him as if he'd been reunited with an old friend.
Obama proved an able statesman during his trip to Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago, which ends today, as he did early this month in Europe. But on both trips he found that personal diplomacy has its limitations -- that a leader's abundant charisma can't overcome hard national interests or policy disputes marinated in decades of resentment.
Obama came to the summit of 34 democratically elected leaders in the Western Hemisphere hoping to talk about issues that invite consensus, such as environmental protection and economic recovery. Many of his counterparts, however, wanted a commitment to end the U.S.'s 47-year trade embargo against Cuba, a commitment Obama would not make.
"It's fair to say there's a disagreement on Cuba," deputy national security advisor Denis McDonough told reporters Saturday night.
On the president's trip, the limits of personal diplomacy were evident on all sides. Obama stopped first in Mexico City, where he repeatedly praised President Felipe Calderon for his courage in combating the drug cartels. The visit in Mexico was designed to show solidarity with Calderon.
Calderon made few specific demands of Obama, but he did want the U.S. to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, arguing that since the prohibition lapsed in 2004, the number of such firearms showing up in Mexico has soared.
Obama would not relent. White House aides said that reimposing the weapons ban would be politically untenable, requiring votes of conservative congressional Democrats worried about alienating gun-rights advocates.
The president faced much the same reality in his European debut. Smitten with First Lady Michelle Obama, the paparazzi doted on America's premier power couple. Yet agreements on major issues proved elusive.
Although European leaders spoke of the importance of the Afghanistan mission, the 5,000 new troops pledged by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization failed to include the combat forces sought by Washington, and the $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to countries most hurt by the global downturn announced at the Group of 20 summit fell short of the "new global deal" called for by Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
