U.S., Brazil worried about European crisis

U.S. President Barack Obama and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday vowed to deepen discussions about Europe’s debt problems, in a sign of the growing importance of key emerging economies in the solution of the global economic crisis.

In a bilateral meeting in New York, Obama and Rousseff shared their concern about the economic situation in Greece and, to a certain extent, in Spain and Italy, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota told reporters.

He said U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega will meet in Washington in the next few days to keep discussing those issues.

“They felt that more in-depth discussions about those challenges … are needed before the G20 meeting in November and they agreed that the most appropriate moment (for those discussions) will be the meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner and minister Mantega in Washington,” Patriota said.

One of the subjects that might be on the agenda of that meeting is Brazil’s idea that major emerging market countries make billions of dollars in new funds available to the International Monetary Fund, as a way to help ease the crisis in the euro zone.

Mantega is expected to make such a proposal at a meeting of the BRICS group in Washington later this week, Brazilian government sources told Reuters on Monday. The BRICS bloc of large emerging markets include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The meeting between Rousseff and Obama in New York lasted a little less than half an hour, Patriota said. The Brazilian president congratulated her counterpart for his plan to create jobs and was invited by her American counterpart to visit the United States early next year, Patriota said.