Obama faces challenges on first trip

WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama will face a tough test selling his security and economic plans to European leaders despite his personal popularity, analysts say.

As Obama prepares for his first overseas state visit to attend this week's Group of 20 economic summit in London -- France, Germany and other nations have resisted his calls for government spending to stimulate European economies, The Washington Post reported Sunday. U.S. pleas to Europe to contribute more troops to the NATO war effort in Afghanistan have also largely gone unheeded.

"The notion that Europe is going to rally around this administration is being exploded," Nile Gardiner of the conservative Heritage Foundation told the newspaper, saying that while Obama would get "a rapturous welcome" from the European public, "when it gets down to the discussions … there are going to be very tense discussions."

Analysts told The New York Times the challenges are partly the result of lingering unhappiness around the world at the way the former President George Bush used American power, and have been heightened by the feeling that the economic crisis has left the United States in no position to impose its will.