Drea Knufken
This month’s G20 (Group of 20) meeting took place this weekend in Toronto. Aside from 900 arrests, the G20 meeting’s outcomes were predictably mellow. Still, some countries made out better than others. Reuters compiled a nice list of G20 winners and losers. Here’s the America excerpt:
U.S. President Barack Obama arrived at the summit on what White House officials hoped would be a triumphant note after House and Senate negotiators reached a final compromise on a bill that would bring about the most sweeping overhaul of financial rules since the 1930s.
But he left having achieved little on the fiscal issues that dominated the summit. The United States was forced to give ground on European demands for a new emphasis on budget austerity, which it had warned threatened to torpedo the fragile economic recovery.
Obama also told G20 leaders that existing proposals in the Doha world trade talks did not meet U.S. needs and would have to change significantly.
Brazil was the only other loser on the list. Good thing that G20s are usually so rife with disagreement that they rarely go anywhere.
