Obama pushes for renewed engagement with Asia

(CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama began his push for renewed engagement with Asia, seeking to highlight domestic jobs that increased exports to the region would create.

Obama is using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit --- hosted by the U.S. for the first time since the Clinton administration -- as a kickoff for a new era in foreign policy focusing on the region.

Despite the focus of the summit and its Saturday events -- free trade and other economic issues in the Asia Pacific region -- the crisis facing Europe was top of mind.

During a session featuring business leaders from the region, Obama discussed the financial crisis in Europe.

"I was pleased to see that European leaders were taking seriously the need to not just solve the Greek crisis, but also to solve the broader eurozone crisis," Obama said.

"There have been some positive developments over the last week: a new potential government in Italy, a new government in Greece -- both committed to applying the sort of internal structural reform that can give markets more confidence."

The president also emphasized the U.S. need to court foreign investment, despite leading the world in that area.

"We've been a little bit lazy I think over the last couple of decades," Obama said. "We've kind of taken for granted that people will want to come here and we aren't out there trying to sell America and attract new businesses into America.'

CEOs of Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar and Google passed when asked to comment on the president's characterization of the problem, though Eric Schmidt of Google said it's not the word he would have used.

Obama met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

With Medvedev, the president discussed economic issues and Iran, which a recent IAEA report finds to be closer to have the capacity to make nuclear weapons. Russia has expressed skepticism of the findings.

"We discussed Iran and reaffirmed our intention to work to shape a common response so we can move Iran to follow its international obligations when it comes to its nuclear program," Obama said, revealing few specifics.

In his meeting with Hu, the president addressed currency manipulation and protecting U.S. intellectual property from illegal use by Chinese companies and the government.

"He made it very clear that the American people and the American business community were growing increasingly impatient and frustrated with the state of change in China economic policy and the evolution of the U.S. China economic relationship," Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser told reporters at a briefing Saturday night in Honolulu.

The president capped off the evening with a welcoming ceremony and cultural program for the 18 other leaders at the summit.