Obama says Greece can not take more austerity

“Greece has done it during even hard economic times”.

US President Barack Obama walks into the Maximos Mansion with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to begin their joint meeting and news conference in Athens, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016. We want him to come and see the filth we are living in.

They also stressed the need to push forward with the Paris Agreement on climate change struck previous year to cut greenhouse emissions, and which Trump has said he plans to pull out of.

Obama said distrust of elites and governing institutions had fed success in the US election for Sen.

Obama and Merkel noted that European Union-US trade was the largest between any two partners worldwide, and emphasized that the trans-Atlantic friendship has helped forge a climate accord, provide help for refugees worldwide, form a collective defense under NATO, and strengthen the global fight against the Islamic State extremist group.

The U.S. president said he had been surprised by the Trump victory, but indicated he did not see it as a repudiation of his own policies.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he hopes Trump will be a president “who will live up to all the commitments of the United States in the alliance because a strong NATO is important for Europe but it’s also important for the United States”.

“People seem to think I did a pretty good job”, Obama told reporters, citing his strong approval numbers. “My administration will do everything we can to support the smoothest transition possible”. “I still don’t feel responsible for what the president-elect says or does”.

“The next American president and I could not be more different”, Mr Obama said.

But Obama did warn, without mentioning Trump by name, of the growing power of nationalism and populism in politics.

President Barack Obama says Greece’s acceptance of refugees has “inspired the world” – but it can not handle Europe’s migration problems alone.

About 5,000 people attended the anti-establishment protest, police said. “We must not sever the connections that have enabled so much progress”. The crowd clapped approvingly at several points during Obama’s remarks, but appeared more focused on his approving references to Greece’s economic plan and willingness to host refugees than his broader remarks. But it also has the longest tradition of self-governance.

On his last trip to Europe before handing over power to Donald Trump in January, Obama praised Greece’s efforts to reform its economy and said the United States stood “shoulder to shoulder” with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally through the challenges ahead.

President Barack Obama says austerity alone can not deliver prosperity to the Greek people and that debt relief and other strategies will be needed. “The Greek people’s generosity towards refugees arriving on your shores has inspired the world”.

Unity in Europe in the aftermath of World War II has created five decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity, he said.

And he pledged support for Greece’s attempts to reform its economy – and to seek debt relief – in response to the economic crisis there.