TORONTO — Leaders of the world’s biggest economies agreed Sunday on a timetable for cutting deficits and halting the growth of their debt, but also acknowledged the need to move carefully so that reductions in spending did not set back the fragile global recovery. 
 
 The action at the Group of 20 summit meeting here signaled the determination of many of the wealthiest countries, after enacting spending programs to counter the worldwide financial crisis, to now emphasize debt reduction. And it underscored the conviction of European nations in particular that deficits represented the biggest threat to their economic stability. 
 
 President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had consistently advocated a measured approach to debt reduction that would not stymie growth and lead to a double-dip recession. 
 
 The United States, however, joined other countries at the summit meeting, which was met by protests and several hundred arrests, by endorsing a goal of cutting government deficits in half by 2013 and stabilizing the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product by 2016. Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, had proposed the targets, backed by Germany and Britain. 
 
 To assuage objections from the United States, Japan, India and some other countries, the timetable was couched as an expectation, rather than a firm deadline. The G-20 joint statement explicitly stated that Japan, which is heavily dependent on domestic borrowing, was not expected to meet the targets. 
 
 The divisions were in contrast to the unity that characterized the previous three G-20 leaders’ summits, when the urgency of a potential global collapse produced solidarity and a unified economic approach. Although Mr. Obama insisted emphatically that there was “violent agreement” on the need to reduce debt over time, the final communiqué included a delicately worded call for deficit reduction “tailored to national circumstances.” In essence, the leaders were blessing their decision to go their own ways. 
 
 The joint statement acknowledged both sides of the debate. “There is a risk that synchronized fiscal adjustment across several major economies could adversely impact the recovery,” the statement said. “There is also a risk that the failure to implement consolidation where necessary would undermine confidence and hamper growth.” 
 
 In a news conference at the conclusion of the summit meeting, Mr. Obama referred only indirectly to the disagreement with Europe, saying, “We must recognize that our fiscal health tomorrow will rest in no small measure on our ability to create jobs today.” 
 
 His concern about stimulus was echoed by some economists who viewed the pledge on deficits as imperiling the prospects for growth. 
 
 “China’s growth, specifically, is not seen as sustainable at current rates,” Ronald A. Kurtz, professor of global economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an e-mail message. “The G-20 declaration therefore amounts to saying ‘assume a miracle’ for global growth.” He said Europe’s fiscal austerity plans would also slow growth. 
 
 But Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, said he thought the risks of a new downturn were minimal. 
 
 “We don’t forecast any double dip,” he said. “Double dip was not discussed at the meeting.” 
 
 It is the first time the G-20 has set dates for deficit reduction, but the timetable, which is not binding, will probably not require new policy actions. Most of the governments, including the United States, have already put forward budget proposals in line with the targets. 
 
 The leaders also discussed banking regulations, but could not agree on a proposal for a global bank tax, supported by the United States, Britain and the European Union, but opposed by Canada and Australia. 
 
 And while the G-20 reaffirmed a deadline — their next meeting, in November in Seoul, South Korea — for agreeing on new capital standards for banks, they signaled that several countries might not implement the standards by 2012, as initially planned. 
 
 “While the illusion of progress is good, I don’t see real action to alter the imbalances that brought us to this crisis,” said Raghuram G. Rajan, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund who is now a professor in the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. 
 
 The United States, he said, continues to run large trade deficits financed by Germany, China and Japan. “The U.S. has been the world’s consumer of first resort,” he added, “and because it has been unable to persuade other countries to spend more or to reform quickly, it is likely to take up that position once again.” 
 
 Though Mr. Obama did not prevail in his emphasis on stimulus, he did arrive in Canada with three victories under his belt. 
 
 European leaders had agreed to conduct stress tests on their big banks, an exercise successfully undertaken in the United States last year, in an effort to restore market confidence. China had announced that it would allow a gradual appreciation of its currency. And Congressional negotiators had agreed on a far-reaching overhaul of financial regulations. 
 
 But those accomplishments did not alter the mix of lagging growth, heavy debts and anxious voters that pushed European leaders to press for austerity. 
 
 “The U.S. may be concentrated on premature fiscal tightening, but most other countries are looking with a nervous eye to the sovereign debt mess in Europe,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economist and former I.M.F. chief economist. “Aiming for a gradually improving debt-to-G.D.P. ratio by 2016 is hardly wild-eyed fiscal conservatism.” 
 
 In that light, the G-20 outcome was a victory for Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who argued that without actions to rein in spending, investors would drive up governments’ borrowing costs, as they did in Greece. 
 
 Mr. Obama said, “We helped to draft this communiqué, which reflects our policies,” and added, “Keep in mind that we had already proposed a long time ago that we were going to cut our deficits in half by 2013.” 
 
 He continued, “We can’t all rush to the exits at the same time.” But he also said that for all the talk of German austerity, it was actually reducing its spending gradually, and not any more quickly than the United States. 
 
 While aides to Mr. Obama said that the G-20 statement was in line with budget plans he had already announced, others said it was a move toward austerity. 
 
 “The best thing that countries with fiscal challenges can do is to show that they can live within their means,” George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, said. “Barack Obama has recognized that.” 
 
 The mood here was far less anxious than in November 2008, when the G-20 leaders converged for the first time, in Washington, to battle a still-raging financial crisis. But it was hardly cheery. 
 
 While China did not make any new commitments, the G-20 statement appealed to China to increase spending on infrastructure, let its currency fluctuate and strengthen social protections. 
 
 Those actions are part of what economists call rebalancing — a reorientation of the world economy to be less reliant on debt-financed spending by North American and Western European consumers. China is the largest growth engine but its workers save too much and spend too little, some economists say. 
 
 At China’s urging, the G-20 leaders removed from their joint statement a proposed clause that would have praised China for agreeing to greater exchange-rate flexibility. Mr. Harper said he understood China’s wish not to be singled out, for either criticism or praise, but added, “When you make commitments on the world stage, you will be held accountable for them.” ||||| TORONTO -- President Obama warned Sunday that the world economic recovery remains "fragile" and urged continued spending to support growth, an expansionist call at the end of a summit marked by an agreement among developed nations to halve their annual deficits within three years. 
 
 The president's remarks tempered the Group of 20's headline achievement at the summit, a deficit-reduction target that had been pushed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the host of the meeting and a fiscal conservative. Although there is broad agreement that government debt in the developed world needs to be reduced, there is concern that cutting too fast and too deeply will slow growth and possibly spark a new recession. 
 
 In a news conference at the meeting's conclusion, Obama said that the world's largest economic powers had agreed on the need for "continued growth in the short term and fiscal sustainability in the medium term." 
 
 "A number of our European partners are making difficult decisions," Obama said. "But we must recognize that our fiscal health tomorrow will rest in no small measure on our ability to create jobs and growth today." 
 
 The group's closing statement included the specific deficit-reduction target, but it was couched in caveats -- that deficit reduction needed to be "calibrated" to avoid harming growth, paced differently in each country and paired with other reforms to strengthen the economy. 
 
 Obama and European leaders, in particular, came to the meeting with sharply different views of the strength of the global economic recovery, with the U.S. president more pessimistic. The declaration, in the works for weeks, gave each side what it wanted, although the specific deadlines went further than the Obama administration had preferred before the meeting. 
 
 The administration accepted the deadlines in order to avoid standing against Harper and such important economic powers as Germany. In his closing remarks, Obama stressed that "every country will chart its own unique course, but make no mistake -- we're moving in the same direction." 
 
 The International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, called the deficit target an "oversimplification" of the problem; he said it was more important for individual countries to craft the right economic policies to sustain growth, not blindly cut for the sake of meeting a goal. 
 
 Along with pledging to cut their annual budget deficits by 2013, the developed countries committed to stabilizing their overall debt by 2016. Obama recently set similar goals for the United States. 
 
 Despite the seeming division between the United States' deficit-reduction target and the slower approach favored by Canada and Germany, Obama said there was "violent agreement" within the group about the need to find proper balance -- with some highly indebted countries such as Greece needing to cut immediately and others supporting the recovery with higher spending. 
 
 Overall, the group's final statement reflects its consensus theory for how the world economy needs to change, with the heavily indebted Western nations steadily taming government deficits, and surplus-rich nations "rebalancing" to boost local spending and demand. 
 
 Strong emerging markets such as China, the document said, need to guard against a slowdown by encouraging their governments and people to spend more, investing more on infrastructure, establishing better social safety nets to give families more income, and allowing exchange rates to fluctuate more freely -- a quiet reference to China's managed currency policies. China is a member of the G-20. 
 
 "Advanced surplus" countries -- developed nations that run large trade surpluses -- committed to try to narrow the gap between imports and exports, a particular concern in Europe, where Germany's powerful export-led economy is blamed by some for economic weakness in Greece and elsewhere. 
 
 But the G-20 delegations also left Toronto with much of the heavy lifting on new global financial rules still ahead of them. 
 
 Discussion of a global bank tax -- once considered a major issue for the group -- ended with a commitment that the financial sector would make a "fair" contribution to the cost of resolving financial crises, but leaving it to each nation to decide how and when the contribution would be collected. 
 
 The group also committed to requiring banks worldwide to hold a "significantly higher" amount of capital to buffer them against financial shock. But acknowledging the difficulty that will pose to some institutions, the group's statement opened the door for a transition period to give weaker companies time to raise the funds. 
 
 The G-20 hopes by the end of this year to have new capital rules for banks in place, and leaders consider the issue a core element of global financial reform. But an early test of proposed bank capital rules found that they risked undermining economic growth. Even banks in relatively healthy systems, such as Canada, would have been in a bind and forced to raise substantial new funds, according to bankers and officials familiar with the matter. 
 
 "We have the confluence of two forces. One is about making sure there are no more crises, but we have to make sure we don't destroy our domestic banking systems," said Hyun Song Shin, senior economic adviser to the South Korean government. "What you don't want to do is strangle bank lending."
– The leaders of the Group of 20 nations wrapped up their 2-day summit today in Toronto, striking an agreement to reduce deficits over the next 3 to 6 years without endangering the global economic rebound. The major economic powers vowed to cut their deficits in half by 2013 and "stabilize" debt by 2016 while saying the reductions would be "carefully calibrated to sustain the recovery," reports the Washington Post. The dates are not formal deadlines, thanks in large part to pressure exerted by the US and other allies—including Japan, to which the timeline doesn't apply, the New York Times notes. The American delegation was in the minority cautioning about a double-dip recession. Said one expert: "Aiming for a gradually improving debt-to-GDP ratio by 2016 is hardly wild-eyed fiscal conservatism."