South American nations fretting over potential fallout from a financial crisis in the United States have called an emergency meeting to assess how to fend off spillover economic woes.
Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Saturday an emergency Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) meeting would be held at Colombia's request, without indicating the date and venue.
Correa, who studied economics in Belgium and the United States, said there was a serious risk that the United States would default on government obligations, though he expressed confidence the US economy was not headed for collapse.
"I do not think that is going to happen. The world, the ruling class in the United States, is not going to let it happen," he added.
Correa, whose country uses the greenback as its currency, said South American nations should move to a new financial structure that depends less on the US dollar.
"Why should we depend on the IMF or the World Bank if we have enough savings to create a Bank of the South and fund our own development?" Correa asked. "That can go a long way toward reducing our societies' vulnerability to the dollar."
US President Barack Obama held an urgent White House summit with key Democratic allies Saturday as his Republican foes said fever-pitch efforts to avert a disastrous debt default would soon pay off.
With three days before a midnight Tuesday deadline, Obama stayed largely out of sight but warned in his weekly address that "very little time" remains to reach a deal to raise the $14.3 trillion dollar US debt ceiling.
The US economy hit that limit on May 16 and has used spending and accounting adjustments, as well as higher-than-expected tax receipts, to continue operating normally - but can only do so through August 2.
Business and finance leaders have warned that default would send crippling aftershocks through the fragile US economy, still wrestling with stubbornly high unemployment of 9.2 percent in the wake of the 2008 global meltdown.
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