President Barack Obama said in an interview published on Sunday that leaders of the G20 major global economies would send a "strong message of unity" this week on confronting the world economic crisis.
"With respect to the stimulus, there is going to be an accord that G20 countries will do what is necessary to promote trade and growth," Obama told the Financial Times newspaper. "The most important task for all of us is to deliver a strong message of unity in the face of the crisis."
Obama, who leaves on Tuesday for his first extended trip abroad since becoming president, said he agreed with European leaders that the leading economies needed to build a new financial regulatory structure and coordinate on fiscal stimulus, the Financial Times said.
"The press has tended to frame this as an 'either/or' approach," Obama said. "I have consistently argued that what is needed is a 'both/and' approach. We need stimulus and we need regulation. We need to deal with the problems right in front of us and we also need to make sure we are taking steps to prevent these types of breakdown from happening again."
Obama suggested leaders at the G20 summit in London might stop short of promising to continue their stimulus spending measures into 2010 as the International Monetary Fund has urged.
"There is legitimate concern that most countries already having initiated significant stimulus packages that we need to (first) see how they work," he said.
Obama called for the G20 leaders to take "serious steps" to address toxic assets on their domestic banks' balance sheets, but he acknowledged that a backlash against spending in the United States could make it difficult for him to obtain additional funding for banks, the Financial Times said.
"In all countries there is an understandable tension between the steps that are needed to kick-start the economy and the fact that many of these steps are very expensive and taxpayers have a healthy skepticism about spending too much of their money, particularly when it is perceived that some of the money is being spent not on them but on others who they perceive may have helped precipitate the crisis," he said.
