HONOLULU (Reuters) – President Barack Obama used an Asia-Pacific summit on Saturday to push back against China’s trade practices, insisting Beijing stop poaching U.S. intellectual property and allow its currency to rise.

Obama, under pressure to create jobs at home and eager to highlight U.S. influence abroad, said an undervalued Chinese yuan was putting U.S. businesses at a disadvantage and a change in the currency policy would help the global economy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A series of messy budget showdowns earlier this year have left many in Washington pessimistic that U.S. politicians can deliver on two pressing priorities: taming surging deficits and spurring job growth.

Heading into the 2012 election year, both President Barack Obama and his Republican opponents face huge pressure to avoid the kind of standoffs that nearly forced a government shutdown and that led to a protracted debt-limit fight over the summer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With Europe mired in crisis, President Barack Obama is launching a charm offensive this week to hitch the U.S. economy to growth opportunities in Asia that he hopes can help power the recovery he needs for re-election.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, will host Asian leaders including Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in Honolulu this weekend to seek to improve trade ties across the Pacific.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A series of messy budget showdowns earlier this year have left many in Washington pessimistic that politicians can deliver on two pressing priorities: taming surging deficits and spurring job growth.

Heading into the 2012 election year, both President Barack Obama and his Republican opponents face huge pressure to avoid the kind of standoffs that nearly forced a government shutdown and that led to a protracted debt-limit fight over the summer.

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – The White House still has
hopes for a congressional deal to cut the U.S. budget deficit,
despite a looming Nov. 23 deadline and low expectations from
the 12-member “super committee” charged with making a deal.

Many in Washington are growing increasingly pessimistic
about the prospects for an agreement among the Democratic and
Republican lawmakers on the special budget panel.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama faces the delicate task of pushing European leaders to solve their debt crisis without appearing to lecture them at a summit of world economic powers this week.

Obama heads to France later on Wednesday to urge Europe to fix the long-running crisis that could send the already-weak U.S. economy into another recession.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House has asked the Pentagon for initial recommendations for the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan in 2014, a first step in planning the final U.S. drawdown there despite a bleak security outlook.

Sources familiar with the discussions said President Barack Obama’s top aides have asked for scenarios for 2014. As part of that process, the Pentagon must look at troop levels for 2013 — suggesting deeper withdrawals beyond the removal, by next September, of the 33,000 surge troops Obama deployed in a bid to turn around the flagging decade-old conflict.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House has asked the Pentagon for initial recommendations for the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan in 2014, a first step in planning the final U.S. drawdown there despite a bleak security outlook.

Sources familiar with the discussions said President Barack Obama’s top aides have asked for scenarios for 2014. As part of that process, the Pentagon must look at troop levels for 2013 — suggesting deeper withdrawals beyond the removal, by next September, of the 33,000 surge troops Obama deployed in a bid to turn around the flagging decade-old conflict.

WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, whose
foreign policy agenda has been dominated by Middle East
upheaval and European debt this year, will try to shift the
spotlight to Asia this month to make good on his promise to
deepen U.S. ties in the region.

East Asia, with its economic dynamism and challenge from
China, has been a priority for Obama and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton from their first days in office. But often
their time and media attention have been usurped by conflict in
Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and elsewhere.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought on Saturday to cast himself as a strong leader on foreign policy, highlighting a U.S. pullout from Iraq and the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as success stories.

In a message Obama is likely to push in his 2012 re-election campaign, he said his leadership had made it possible to turn the page on a decade of war and refocus on bolstering the U.S. economy and paying down the national debt.