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US economic worries spark calls for swift euro action
AFP - Wednesday, May 12
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A pensioner reads a newspaper in Zappion Park in downtown Athens. Worried the fragile US economic recovery may be scuttled by the European debt crisis, President Barack Obama's administration is pushing EU leaders to take firm steps to contain the turmoil.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - – Worried the fragile US economic recovery may be scuttled by the European debt crisis, President Barack Obama's administration is pushing EU leaders to take firm steps to contain the turmoil.
The US Federal Reserve has also moved to provide critical support to the embattled eurozone economies, reopening a lending program in which it funnels US dollars to the European Central Bank and other central banks overseas.
Obama, who inherited the biggest financial crisis in decades when he entered office in January last year, and his Treasury chief Timothy Geithner were busy at the weekend prodding for swift action in telephone calls with European leaders and other officials.
The US president made two calls to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in three days and also spoke to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as European Union ministers held crisis talks in Brussels before adopting a trillion-dollar war chest Monday to support the beleagured euro.
"The president and his economic team have been following and engaged in this situation for quite some time," spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday, noting Obama had spoken about the need for "strong action" to give confidence to the markets.
Global markets plunged last week amid concerns the Greek debt crisis would spread to other ailing European economies such as Spain, Portugal and even Italy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Wall Street blue chip benchmark, dived nearly six percent during the week in its worst drop since the peak of the US financial crisis in October 2008.
Following the market hemorrhage, Geithner lamented in calls to his Group of Seven counterparts that Washington was not pleased with the eurozone rescue efforts, US officials told AFP, confirming reported comments.
"He was very direct," said one official, adding Geithner had told his counterparts the intervention was not in the "right order of magnitude" and should be increased.
"He had said more commitments were needed from struggling countries in terms of "fiscal credibility."
European Union finance ministers agreed on a 750 billion euro (close to a trillion dollars) package of loan guarantees and credits in marathon talks lasting more than 11 hours that ended early Monday.
Washington welcomed the aggressive action.
In fact, American officials became worried about the lackluster European response to the debt crisis as early as February, when European leaders repeatedly stated that the Greece problem was well contained, a senior administration official said, according to the New York Times.
The Europeans believed that mere expressions of support would be enough to calm the markets -- and they did not need to put in real commitments of emergency funds, the newspaper said.
As the epicenter of the global financial crisis appeared to move to Europe from the United States, Obama is understandably concerned that his efforts to prop up the US economy from the worst recession in decades may be dampened by any contagion arising from the European crisis, analysts said.
The European debt dilemma, for example, has led to a sharp weakening of the euro, down by about 10 percent against the dollar in the last six months.
The strengthening greenback could dampen Obama's ambitious plan to double exports in a bid to ease near double digit unemployment.
"That hurts our competitive position. It hurts our exports, just when President Obama has stressed the need to expand US exports to get our economy growing and job growth up here," said Fred Bergsten, head of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The European budget crisis is also a stark reminder of the burgeoning budget deficit in the United States that could hit 1.6 trillion dollars in the current fiscal year.
"We are on a path which will go to where Greece is, there's no question about that, if we don't adjust our present financial house," warned Republican Senator Judd Gregg in an interview Monday on the Fox Business Network.
"If we continue to spend much more than we take in -- we'll double our debt in five years and triple it in 10 years and essentially be where Greece is in about seven years," he said.
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