Obama confident Europeans will resolve debt crisis
ASSOCIATED PRESS June 19, 2012 7:10PM
Updated: June 19, 2012 7:45PM
LOS CABOS, Mexico (AP) — President Barack Obama voiced confidence Tuesday in Europe’s ability to tackle its crippling debt crisis as he sought to calm both global financial markets and the election-year worries of voters at home.
Obama, speaking at the close of the Group of 20 economic summit, said Europe’s leaders showed a “heightened sense of urgency” during two days of talks in this Mexican resort. The president maintained that Europe had the capacity to solve the crisis on its own, indicating the U.S., still battling its own economic woes, would not be offering any financial pledges to help its international partners.
Still, he recognized the challenge European nations faced because each country has to separately approve any action to stabilize the fiscal union.
Mindful of his audience of voters in the U.S., Obama said: “The best thing the United States can do is to create jobs and growth in the short term even as we continue to put our fiscal house in order over the long term.”
The president, in a close re-election fight, acknowledged that Europe’s economic troubles, as well as the continued economic uncertainty in the U.S., “will potentially have some impact on the election.
