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US President Barack Obama speaks alongside British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, March 3, 2009. [Agencies]
Brown on Tuesday started his two-day visit to the American capital amidst dwindling support for his Labor Party at home. He also faces what analysts say is a diminished bond with the White House compared with the relationship between George W. Bush and Tony Blair at the height of the US-led war against terror.
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
Brown had been touting the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States before he traveled to Washington.
"There is no international partnership in recent history that has served the world better than the special relationship between Britain and the United States," Brown said in an article in The Sunday Times of London.
Such enthusiasm was quickly echoed by Barack Obama, the new leader of the world's largest economy.
"The special relationship between the United States and Great Britain is one that is not just important to me, it is important to the American people," Obama told reporters after meeting with Brown.
As the first European leader to meet Obama at the White House, Brown outpaced French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in clinching a close connection with the new administration.
This might help the British leader polish his image among countrymen in a turbulent time and put him in a better position to appear side by side with Obama at the April G-20 summit that will consider the international economic crisis.
GLOBAL NEW DEAL
The talks between Brown and Obama were expected to focus mainly on measures to jump-start international economic growth in the most serious downturn in decades.
Brown will first promote his "global new deal" with Obama before taking the proposal to the G-20 talks.
The prime minister, who is chairing the G-20 gathering, has said he would push for deep regulatory changes and coordinated efforts from all of the world's major economies, developed and developing, to revamp financial rules and stimulate the global economy.
However, as pointed out by many analysts, there is the potential for fermenting bitterness between Britain and the United States. That's because no small number of Britons believe themselves to be victims of a crisis they say was triggered by the United States.
During a press conference earlier this month, Brown said there was a "failure in the American regulatory system."
"If you take the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States of America, the sub-prime mortgages, half of them were sold to Europe," he said.
"The people who were buying these investments from America were buying what they were told was the most worthy investment of them all, Triple A rated," Brown said.
Meanwhile, analysts say it was unrealistic to expect another honeymoon for British-US ties as Obama seems to have attached more importance to the Pacific region than to Europe.
That observation was reflected in the fact that Hillary Clinton's first overseas trip as Secretary of State was to Asia and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso was the foreign leader to visit the White House since Obama became president. | 
