Published November 10, 2010
 |
AP
Nov. 10: President Obama arrives to attend the G-20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea.
|
Associated Press
YOKOHAMA, Japan -- Intensifying friction over currencies and trade loomed Wednesday as leaders of major economies converged on Asia for back-to-back summits aimed at safeguarding the still fragile global recovery.
President Barack Obama and other top leaders were arriving in Seoul, South Korea, for a two-day Group of 20 summit with the ambitious agenda of remaking the world economy to nurture stable growth and prevent a repeat of the financial meltdown in 2008.
But that gathering, and a weekend summit of Pacific Rim leaders in the Japanese port city of Yokohama, are taking place as those nations struggle to reconcile conflicting strategies for achieving those aims.
G-20 officials -- whose countries comprise 85 percent of all economic activity -- have pledged not to use their currencies as trade weapons. But tensions reignited last week when the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a $600 billion bond
buying plan that angered many trading partners.
Obama, wrapping up a brief visit to Indonesia after touring India, defended the Fed's move as a way to hasten a narrowing of huge gaps in trade and investment by engineering a weaker U.S. dollar -- thus putting pressure on countries with large trade and foreign exchange surpluses.
Read the entire article
No comments:
Post a Comment