President Barack Obama says Europe's debt crisis is a "chronic bleeding wound" hurting the entire global economy but predicts that the continent's common currency zone won't fall apart.
"I don't think, ultimately, that the Europeans will let the euro unravel," Obama told supporters at a fundraiser in New York on Monday. But Europe's struggles will be among the economic "headwinds" blowing against America's recovery "over the next several months."
The president renewed his call for European leaders to "take decisive steps" to get their financial houses in order and said he spends "an enormous amount" of his time talking with them about solutions to the crisis.
"And it's a testament, by the way—or it's an interesting contrast to what's happened here," said Obama. "The fact that we took some decisive action in 2008 and 2009, despite its unpopularity, indicates what we avoided, this chronic bleeding wound that has been an enormous problem not just for Europe now, but for the entire global economy."