Washington: The simmering eurozone debt crisis posed a big threat to the US economic recovery, with the region facing the risk of a renewed recession, US President Barack Obama said on Friday.
Speaking during a press conference, Obama said the European leaders should take further action to strengthen the weak banking sector and soothe market jitters, Xinhua reported.
US lawmakers should pass the full American Jobs Act presented by the administration to Congress last September to spur job creation in the US and guard against economic slowdown risks in other parts of the world, he said.
The conference came following a weak job report and a string of other economic data showing US economic growth was slowing and the impacts of the escalating eurozone debt crisis had reached US shores, putting pressure on US policy markers to take action.
Obama reiterated his confidence in European leaders' capacity to contain the two-year-old crisis, saying that "the decisions required are tough but Europe has the capacity to make them".
The US president stressed the importance of fiscal stimulus measures to shore up anemic economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, noting that the short-term challenges for the US were to speed up job creation and economic recovery.
Over the longer term, even as European countries with large debt burdens carry out necessary fiscal reforms, they still need to promote economic growth and job creation, he noted.
"As some countries have discovered, it's a lot harder to rein in deficits and debts if your economy isn't growing," Obama added.
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