Sequester won't threaten the world financially: Obama

Says he is continuing with his efforts to avoid the coming into effect of the automatic spending cuts

US President Barack Obama has assured the international community that the automatic spending cuts or sequester that would come into effect on March 1 will not threaten the world financial system.

"With respect to world leaders, I think that unlike issues like the debt ceiling, the sequester going into effect will not threaten the world financial system," Obama told reporters in a joint press availability with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his Oval Office yesterday.

"It's not like the equivalent of the US defaulting on its obligations. What it does mean, though, is that if the US is growing slower, then other countries grow slower because we continue to be a central engine in world economic growth. So I don't think anybody would like to see this outcome," Obama said in response to a question on sequester.

The US President said he is continuing with his efforts to avoid the coming into effect of the automatic spending cuts.

"I never think that anything is inevitable. We always have the opportunity to make the right decisions. I've been very clear that these kinds of arbitrary, automatic cuts would have an adverse impact. This is not a smart way for us to reduce the deficit," he said.

"I've also been very clear that there's an alternative, which is for us to take the kind of balanced approach that I've presented, where we have more strategic cuts on programs we don't need and we close some tax loopholes that are taken advantage of only by the well-connected and the well-off," Obama said, adding that this is what the majority of American people prefer.

"So I will continue to have conversations with members of Congress, both while they're gone and when they get back next week" Obama said.

He added that he hopes to see a different course taken by Congress in dealing with the deficits.