WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama yesterday urged Americans to show patience over the economy and argued that his just-concluded Asia trip was critical for US exports, countering criticism he had returned empty-handed.
With unemployment at a generation high of 10.2 percent and once-lofty popularity ratings down, Obama said a December White House forum will leave no stone unturned in the hunt for jobs.
“Even though it will take time, I can promise you this: we are moving in the right direction; that the steps we are taking are helping,” Obama said in his weekly address, amid signs that the public is getting impatient for results.
A Gallup poll on Friday showed Obama’s job approval rating had dropped to 49 percent, the first time he has fallen below 50 percent in this survey, as Americans express dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy and other issues.
Obama’s remarks on the economy were his first in public since returning to Washington after an eight-day Asian tour where critics said he had failed to win significant concessions on trade or currency manipulation from partners like China.
Citing progress on a trip that took him from Tokyo to Seoul, Obama noted that “Asia is a region where we now buy more goods and do more trade with than any other place in the world — commerce that supports millions of jobs back home.”
“I spoke with leaders in every nation I visited about what we can do to sustain this economic recovery and bring back jobs and prosperity for our people — a task I will continue to focus on relentlessly in the weeks and months ahead,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address taped while he was in Seoul, the South Korean capital, and released Saturday.
The president pitched his trip as a way to reintroduce the US to those trading partners, including China.
The Chinese government is the United States’ biggest foreign creditor with $800bn of federal US debt, which gives it extraordinary power in the relationship. And Beijing feels the global recession, sparked by US financial industry excesses, vindicates its authoritarian leadership.
US growth jumped in the third quarter, ending the longest economic slump the country has suffered in 70 years, but this has not yet translated into a faster pace of hiring.
Obama’s December 3 jobs forum will gather leaders from business and labour to review how to boost credit to small business, encourage firms to hire and boost green jobs and other ideas.
But the White House has already said it will not be about a second stimulus package, potentially limiting how much of a dent the initiative will be able to make in the 15.7 million Americans who were drawing unemployment aid in October.
“It is important that we do not make any ill-considered decisions —even with the best of intentions —particularly at a time when our resources are so limited.
“But it is just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work. That’s what I hope to achieve in this forum,” he said.
