Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 1, 2009; 7:33 AM
LONDON, April 1-- President Obama said Wednesday that America accepts its share of the blame for the global economic collapse that leaders have gathered here to fix, but said recovery will depend on the world's nations acting together to spark growth and revamp economic regulations.
Speaking at a news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street, the president said the United States "has some accounting to do" because of a financial regulatory system that proved inadequate to oversee the growth of banks and hedge funds.
But he added that there has been an equal "mismatch between regulatory reforms and the highly integrated global markets" and said he expects a concerted approach to be announced at the economic summit which begins with a working dinner Wednesday night.
"The United States does not intend to act alone, and we are not," Obama said after a closed-door meeting with Brown.
"The world has become accustomed to the United States being a voracious consumer market and the engine that drives a lot of economic growth worldwide," Obama said. "If there's going to be renewed growth, it can't just be the United States as the engine. Everybody is going to have to pick up the pace."
Both leaders dismissed talk of dissension among the governments gathered here about how best to proceed with economic recovery and whether to spend more money to spark growth. Obama called reports of those disagreements "vastly overstated."
To reports that French President Nicholas Sarkozy might pull out of the summit if the negotiations don't go his way, Brown joked that he was "confident that he will still be sitting as we complete our dinner this evening."
In advance of his first face-to-face meeting today with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev, Obama said he has no interest in "papering over" the "very real differences between the United States and Russia."
But he said that there are "broad interests" that can form the basis of a cooperative relationship, and that he detects "great potential" for working together on a broad range of topics.
Chief among those, he said, will be efforts to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The two leaders are set to announce an effort to rewrite an arms control treaty that would reduce the number of nuclear weapons that each country has.
"Both the United States and Russia and other nuclear powers will be in a much stronger position to strengthen what has become a somewhat fragile, threadbare non-proliferation treaty if we are leading by example," Obama said at the news conference.
Obama acknowledged that the threat from nuclear warfare has receded since the end of the Cold War, but called the threat of terrorists or others getting their hands on the weapons the "greatest threat to humanity."
On a lighter note, the president declined to be drawn into predictions about the outcome of soccer games in Europe, citing controversy in the United States over his NCAA tournament bracket. He said the only campaign advice he would give Brown, who is running for re-election, was that "over time, good policy is good politics."
The new U.S. president was also careful to meet the protocol requirements that go with carefully scripted overseas trips.
In the first moments at the microphone, Obama mentioned the "special relationship" that the United States has with Britain, a pet phrase that his spokesman failed to use several weeks ago, prompting mocking headlines in the British tabloid press.
Obama also made certain to articulate his anticipation about the audience he and first lady Michelle Obama will have with Queen Elizabeth II later Wednesday.
"As you might imagine, Michele has really been thinking that through," Obama said. "In the imagination of people throughout America, what the queen stands for and her decency and her civility and what she stands for, that's very important."
Michelle Obama spent Wednesday morning with Sarah Brown, the prime minister's wife, touring sites in London.
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