Seoul:
Foreign leaders couldn't seem to get enough of President Obama when he arrived on the world stage two years ago. They brought copies of his memoir to global conferences seeking his autograph. They angled for handshakes and "bilats" -- diplomatic jargon for a one-on-one meeting, or bilateral. They maneuvered to get next to him in photo opportunities.
Now the glow has worn off. So when the heads of state convened this week for the Group of 20 conference -- a gathering marked by disputes over currency and global trade imbalances between the United States and its allies -- wrapped up here on Friday, they were not shy about putting Mr. Obama on the defensive.
"It's not just a function of personal charm," the president said Friday, at a news conference wrapping up the session. "It's a function of countries' interests and seeing if we can work through to align them."
The question of whether Mr. Obama had lost his diplomatic touch was a running thread through the news conference. When a reporter asked what kind of complaints he was hearing from fellow leaders about the United States, Mr. Obama laughed it off, asking, "What about compliments?" He said other world leaders are pushing back against the United States because "we're initiating ideas." As to whether the mid-term elections at home have weakened him overseas, he served up a one-word answer: No.
Before leaving Washington for a 10-day diplomatic tour of Asia that he has characterized as an economic mission, Mr. Obama conceded his relationship with the American people has come down from an "incredible high" and gotten "rockier and tougher" as time went on. But he said the same is not true of his relations with foreign leaders.
"When I first came into office people might have been interested in more photo ops because there had been a lot of hoopla surrounding my election," Mr. Obama said, adding that he now has a "genuine friendship" with a raft of world leaders -- though "that doesn't mean there aren't going to be differences."
He ticked off those on the "genuine friendship" list: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan of Turkey and President Lee Myung-Bak of South Korea. Then, perhaps reluctant to offend the leader of a rival country, Mr. Obama threw out another name: President Hu Jintao of China, whose clashes with the president over currency policy have drawn headlines here.
"It wasn't any easier to talk about currency when I had just been elected and my poll numbers were at 65 percent than it is now," Mr. Obama said. "It was hard then and it is now."
Mr. Obama is nearing the end of his trip, which has produced mixed results. In India, he won praise for reframing the relationship between that nation and the United States by lifting restrictions on exports of sensitive technologies and backing India's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. His stop in Indonesia was a sentimental homecoming; Mr. Obama lived there as a boy.
But Mr. Obama stumbled here in Seoul. He failed to seal a deal with President Lee on a long-awaited free trade agreement, a serious setback for a president who has made doubling exports a centerpiece of his economic agenda. And his plan to even out global trade imbalances ran into resistance from President Hu and Chancellor Merkel, among others. Mr. Obama chalked it up to international muscle-flexing.
"The United States, obviously, has a special role to play on the international stage, regardless of who is President," Mr. Obama said. "We are a very large, very wealthy, very powerful country. We have had outsized influence over world affairs for a century now. And you are now seeing a situation in which a whole host of other countries are doing very well and coming into their own, and naturally they are going to be more assertive in terms of their interests and ideas. And that's a healthy thing."
Mr. Obama lamented the "search for drama" in disagreement at such summits.
"Part of the reason that sometimes it seems as if the United States is attracting some dissent is because we're initiating ideas," he said, "And some countries pushed back."
By the time 45 minutes had passed, Mr. Obama seemed eager to end the news conference and get on to his next stop: Yokohama, Japan, where he is to attend yet another conference, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. As a president with his own plane, Air Force One, Mr. Obama controls his own schedule. But he cut short his final questioner.
"I'm late for my flight," the president explained.