"European governments, for the sake of pleasing Obama, are not going to make concessions on these fundamental interests and political requirements," said Reginald Dale, director of the Transatlantic Media Network and senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS.
The G-20 summit, which will focus almost entirely on the global economic crisis, on Thursday will bring together leaders of the major developed economies of Europe and Asia, as well as the European Union and such emerging economic powers as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil. Obama is also expected to hold more wide-ranging meetings with some individual leaders, including China's Hu Jintao and Russia's Dmitry Medvedev.
Before returning to Washington, he will visit Turkey, one of the United States' most important allies in the Muslim world. There too Obama will encounter leaders who are not wholly in sync with American policies.
Especially in Europe, there is deep anger over what is seen as the role of reckless American financial institutions, and a complacent Bush administration, in creating the catastrophe.
The differences between the United States and its allies involve not just contending interests, but national attitudes and historical experiences.
On the question of more stimulus spending, for example, Americans have grown relatively accepting of government deficits. European Union policymakers set limits on the budget deficits member countries can run.
Conversely, European countries have a history of far more government involvement with business than the U.S.
European governments formed a consortium to launch the Airbus as a competitor to American jetliners, for instance, but Americans are having a hard time with the idea of government intervention to avert a collapse of the domestic auto industry.
Meantime, China has been questioning the dominance of the U.S. dollar and suggesting the creation of a new currency reserve to replace it as the world standard.
Despite these differences, many expect G-20 leaders to make cooperation the watchword at the summit.
Michael Froman, Obama's deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs, suggests the G-20 nations are much more in sync about what to do than the recent public statements from France, Germany and the Czech Republic might suggest.
