Obama to Asia: Don't rely on debt-laden U.S. consumers

SINGAPORE--Declaring the world at "one of those rare inflection points in history," President Obama told the leaders of China and other Asian countries Sunday that they can no longer rely on debt-laden American shoppers to fuel their economies and that the United States must consume less and export more.

"The recession we're just now recovering from has clearly taught us the limits of depending on the American consumer to drive economic growth," Obama told a summit of Pacific Rim nations in Singapore, a vibrant Southeast Asian city-state that symbolizes Asia's economic transformation.

Obama's comments, made at the annual meeting here of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, hammered home what has become a leitmotif of his eight-day tour of Asia: the need for "sweeping change" in the way the world economy works.

Obama touched on a wide range of issues during a whirlwind day of meetings here. Significantly, he demanded the release of Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi in a meeting that included the Burmese prime minister, a general who is a close associate of the country's reclusive and hardline leader Than Shwe. It was the first encounter between a U.S. president and a member of Burma's military junta, which is under sanctions for human rights abuses.

Obama's willingness to sit in the same room with a Burmese leader reflects his administration's view that the United States must engage with regimes that it doesn't like, a sharp reversal of the Bush-era approach.

In a separate meeting with Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, Obama offered an update on his Afghanistan review. The two leaders discussed ways Russia might do more to combat the Taliban in a country Moscow knows well from its own doomed nine-year war there before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization recently asked Russia to help arm and equip Afghan forces. Russia lets supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan pass through its territory but has not yet provided lethal aid.

Obama told Medvedev he will inform him of a final decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan once it has been made, said Michael McFaul, the chief Russia hand on the National Security Council. The two presidents also made progress toward a new U.S.-Russia treaty to replace a nuclear arms reduction accord that expires Dec. 5, McFaul said. And both leaders expressed a shared impatience with Iran over delays in resolving the fate of its nuclear program through diplomatic means.

"We are running out of time with respect to that approach," Obama said, as he and Medvedev met during the APEC summit.

For the most part, however, it was the global economy that dominated Obama's appearances in Singapore--much as it had during his two days in Japan at the start of his Asia trip.

While pledging to promote free trade and avoid protectionist measures that China and other countries have accused the United States of adopting, Obama also pitched his remarks at an American public increasingly anxious about jobs as unemployment hovers above 10 percent. His speech, peppered with assurances on jobs, was as much an attempt to sell Asia to ordinary Americans as an exercise in international diplomacy.

Future prosperity, said Obama, depends on "a strategy where the United States consumes less and exports more. This won't just lead to more balanced growth -- it has the potential to create millions of new, well-paying jobs."

Obama, who arrived in Singapore from Tokyo on Saturday and leaves Sunday evening for Shanghai, will spend three days in China, by far the longest part of his Asian tour, a sign of the importance the White House attaches to the Asian giant 's role as both a growing economic power and a global strategic player. Washington looks to China to help tackle some of the administration's key security concerns -- the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran and the mounting turmoil in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which shares a border with China's Muslim western region.