WASHINGTON — Wary of complacency, President
Barack Obama will urge a summit of world financial powers to stick with efforts
to boost the global economy rather than abandon coordinated economic stimulus
work, a top White House adviser said Wednesday.
Obama next week is hosting the Group of 20
nations in Pittsburgh, Pa., for a status check on the worst financial crisis
since the Great Depression. The circumstances are far less dire than in April,
when leaders of the same nations met in London, pledging more than $1 trillion
in loans and other coordination to halt the freefall.
In the U.S., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke now says the recession is probably over, but many people will still
struggle to find jobs.
"Pittsburgh is not intended to be a victory
lap," said Obama adviser Mike Froman, deputy national security adviser for
international economics. "We will be underscoring the need to remain
vigilant."
He emphasized that meant not withdrawing from
global economic stimulus efforts too quickly.
Setting expectations, Froman said the summit
will not yield any major announcements of new spending. As he put it, this one
is "not a trillion-dollar summit."
But the U.S. does want to emerge with tangible
progress in areas that are priorities for Obama and many of his peers.
Among them: reform of how the global financial
system is regulated; agreement on how to ensure sustainable economic growth,
including some type of process for developing and industrial countries to hold
each other accountable; and more effort to rein in hefty pay and bonuses for
financial executives.
Each broad area, though, contains the potential
for countries to splinter on the specifics.
The G-20 playbook is expected to follow what the
top finance officials from the rich and developing countries agreed to in
London earlier this month. The finance ministers pledged to maintain stimulus
measures, such as extra government spending and low interest rates, to boost
the global economy. Their message was that fiscal and monetary policy should
stay "expansionary" for as long as needed to reduce the chances of a
double-dip recession.
Froman said the mood of the nations' elected
leaders remains similarly sober-minded.
"We may have come back from the brink, but
I don't think people are at all complacent about where we are," Froman
told reporters in a trip briefing.
Obama will be in New York from Monday through
Wednesday for the U.N. General Assembly. He is expected to arrive in Pittsburgh
on Thursday for the G-20 summit and attend a working dinner with other leaders
that night. He will take part in G-20 sessions Friday, hold a news conference
and fly back to Washington.
The G-20 includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil,
Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Britain and the U.S. The
European Union, represented by its rotating presidency and the European Central
Bank, is the 20th member.
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