TORONTO – If there’s one takeaway snapshot from the gathering of the world’s economic powers here this weekend, it will be President Barack Obama, last year’s new kid on the block, shaking hands with British Prime Minister David Cameron, the new, new kid on the block.
The hour-long session between the two leaders scheduled for Saturday is among the most important on Obama’s busy schedule during his three-day trip to Canada for the G8 and G20 summits and, as his first meeting with the new leader of the U.S.’s closest ally, it will generate the usual invocations of “the special relationship” between the two countries. But Obama and Cameron, who ousted Gordon Brown and his Labor government a little over six weeks ago, will go into the meeting with their relationship already under strain.
There is growing unease in Britain over the White House’s handling of the Gulf the oil spill, particularly its hard-nosed approach to BP, and over Afghanistan, where just days ago Obama ordered a shakeup in the U.S. command that coincided with the deadliest month for NATO troops since the war began in 2001.
Full story: ‘Special relationship’ under strain as Obama and Cameron meet – Carol E. Lee – POLITICO.com