President Barack Obama today pressed for "bold, comprehensive and coordinated action" to end a global economic downturn ahead of an evening news conference to explain his recovery strategy to a recession-weary public.
Writing in a column sent to major world newspapers, Mr Obama urged leaders of the Group of 20 major economies to follow the US lead by taking action to stimulate their economies until global demand is restored.
"We are living through a time of global economic challenges that cannot be met by half measures or the isolated efforts of any nation," Mr Obama wrote ahead of the G20 summit he will attend in London in early April.
"The leaders of the Group of 20 have a responsibility to take bold, comprehensive and coordinated action that not only jump-starts recovery, but also launches a new era of economic engagement to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again."
In his second prime-time news conference tonight, the president plans to explain his economic strategy to Americans angered over executive bonus payments and concerned about the country's direction.
The news conference comes a day after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced details of a public-private plan to help rid banks of $1 trillion in assets whose uncertain value helped plunge the global economy into crisis.
US stocks edged lower in mid-afternoon trading today as investors paused a day after stocks soared on the plan, as some experts questioned whether the plan would work.
Mr Obama, who called the move "one more critical element in our recovery," was expected to explain his thinking in the televised session with the media.
"What the president will do tonight is update the American people on the steps that this administration is taking to get the economy moving again, to create jobs, put money directly back into their pockets," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told said.
He said Mr Obama would talk about his moves to stabilise the financial system, prevent home foreclosures and spur access to credit, as well as plans to reform the financial regulatory system to prevent a recurrence of the crisis.
The news conference, the president's first since February 9th and second since taking office on January 20th, follows a difficult week for him, after he was hit with public outrage over the payment of $165 million in executive bonuses by American International Group after the insurance giant received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money.
Mr Obama was forced to repeatedly condemn the bonuses through the week while fending off calls for Mr Geithner's resignation because Treasury was aware in advance of the payments.
Mr Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke today told a congressional panel fuming over the bonus payments that Treasury needed the authority to shut down troubled financial institutions like AIG to avoid government bailouts in the future.
Mr Obama told reporters after a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd the administration was "hard at work" on a proposal to give the government power to close troubled non-bank financial firms.
He said the regulations needed to be co-ordinated globally and that he expected "that coming out of the G20 there will be a framework to deal with a whole host of these financial regulatory issues."
Reuters