In an especially grim analysis of the federal budget, the New York Times argued this week that the severity of the budget deficit has disastrous implications about America’s ability to reign as global power. As Obama’s focus turns toward improving U.S. finances instead of foreign relations, Europe's global power has little chance of improving.

Take, for example, a US-EU summit in Madrid scheduled for May that would have been a highlight of Spain’s six-month EU presidency. European officials got word of the fact that President Obama wasn’t even planning to attend the summit only by way of a WSJ article -- US officials couldn't be bothered to first alert their EU counterparts -- and the event was canceled. European officials have aired out their woes in a number of interviews, citing what’s been deemed a “snub” and expressing concern that Obama will continue to forego the strengthening of US-EU ties as he deals with Russia, China and his deficit worries.

Obama’s decision to skip a US-EU summit has few practical implications but bears a good deal of symbolic weight. As Europe looks to grow as a solidified political bloc, the meeting would have been the first major summit since a new council president and foreign policy chief were appointed and one of the first opportunities to speak for its 27 nations under a single voice.

The problem for Europe is that it needs a strong partnership with Obama in order to establish political clout – but the US has little to gain from investing a lot of time in the alliance. It's probably the last thing on Obama's mind when he's dealing with a prediction that the budget deficit has no chance to return to sustainable levels for at least another decade.