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Obama under fire at G20 summit

SEOUL — President Barack Obama defended US efforts to promote growth on Thursday as he faced a test of his leadership mettle at a G20 summit heralded by fierce global criticism of American economic policy.

Entering the most contentious economic summit yet of his crisis-scarred presidency, Obama was playing the unusual role of lightning rod for foreign anger soon after he was weakened at home by a mid-term election defeat.

The president vowed to continue efforts to ignite the slumbering US economic engine, despite lashing foreign critiques of the Federal Reserve’s plan to pour 600 billion dollars into the US economy.

“In a prudent, stable way, we want to make sure that we are boosting growth rates at home as well as abroad,” Obama told reporters ahead of a summit that is exposing widely differing views on how to sustain the global recovery.

China has led criticism of the Fed’s move, branding it indirect currency manipulation, returning fire after complaints from US officials at what they argue is the artificially low value of the Chinese yuan.

But Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao kept the dispute, and other disagreements over trade, under wraps in a brief appearance before reporters as they met in a Seoul hotel.

• UAE