US President Barack Obama geared up yesterday for whirlwind meetings this week with counterparts from China, Japan and Russia, but Iran's firebrand leader looked set to be left out in the cold.
As world leaders converge on New York for the annual UN general assembly, officials said Obama would kick off a flurry of high-profile bilateral encounters by meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday.
With the G20 summit of leading economies to follow in Pittsburgh later in the week and Obama due to make his first visit to China as president in November, they will look to resolve a simmering trade row.
The United States last week slapped punitive tariffs of an additional 35 per cent on Chinese-made tire imports, prompting Beijing to lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Beijing says Washington's move violated WTO rules and has warned it will damage trade relations, but the US has denied it amounted to protectionism.
With such a significant chunk of the world economy relying on the symbiotic US-China relationship, other world leaders will be hoping Hu and Obama can bury the hatchet.
The pair are also likely to discuss policy toward North Korea, whose leader last Friday reportedly told a Chinese envoy that the country was willing to engage in bilateral and multilateral talks on Pyongyang's controversial nuclear programme.
Obama meets Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev the following day, looking to build on the positive response that greeted his revamped plans for missile defence in Europe.
Russia had condemned a scheme to install an anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland drawn up by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush.
Obama announced last Thursday he would replace the shield with a more mobile system initially using mainly sea-based interceptors to target short and medium-range missiles, after a reassessment of intelligence determined they presented the more imminent threat from Iran.
Russia's defense ministry confirmed yesterday it had scrapped plans to site missiles on the EU's border after Obama's announcement.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hailed Obama's "brave" decision but said it should be followed by other US measures: to lift Soviet-era restrictions on the export of sensitive technology to Russia and to help its WTO membership bid.