Just ok?
After the G-20, we can say that President Barack Obama had a successful entrance onto the world stage, hosting succesful meetings with a variety of major leaders and, in particular, laying the groundwork for further nuclear-weapons reduction negotiations with Russia and reframing the Chinese-American dialogue on strategic and economic issues. The 20 large economies also agreed to increase funding to the International Monetary Fund by $750 billion, work together on tougher regulatory regimes, crack down on tax havens, fund further global trade, and reject protectionism. Read their official communique.
The two biggest failings are that the regulatory regime is thus far non-specific and lacks transparency and that Europe is still not committed to larger fiscal stimulus. It seems that Obama simply did not have the political leverage to overcome the domestic concerns of European leaders on the latter point, and the administration isn't prepared to push for a really revolutionary international regulatory regime, in part because of its own domestic political constraints -- room for a grand bargain, anyone? Both of those, though, were big asks. But it's clear at least that the U.S. also took the lead at this summit, which was nice to see after some years of international fumbles, particularly in the face of threats from France and Germany to walk away from the summit if their regulatory concerns were not met.
As the Times observed, the summit "seemed to be a more forceful and detailed blueprint for recovery than a similar gathering in 1933, which failed to fend off the rampant protectionism and misery of the Great Depression." At least we've got that going for us.
-- Tim Fernholz
