Timothy F. Geithner – U.S. Treasury Secretary

Trust is in short supply on Wall Street. You can almost feel the markets wince with every closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange. And few people in the Obama administration feel the sting more than U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner, who co-authored the ambitious US$789 billion economic stimulus package that
has met with global skepticism. World stock exchanges have plunged since the start of the year. On the day Geithner – former president of the New York Federal Reserve – unveiled his relief plan, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell almost 5 percent. The markets in Latin America followed suit with double-digit drops in some markets. Currencies, from the Brazilian real to the Mexican peso, continued their swoon over fears that U.S. demand for world exports would further weaken. Global trade is currently falling at a faster rate than even during the Great Depression.

“On top of the financial and economic challenges we face… there is another: a lack of faith.”

Despite President Obama’s opposition to trade agreements with South Korea and Colombia during his campaign, Geithner signaled the administration is willing
to move ahead to seek congressional approval for trade treaties with those countries and with Panama. “It’s so important to our country that we sustain a commitment not just to keep our markets open, but that we can find new trade agreements that can benefit American businesses and the American worker,” Geithner testified before the Ways and Means Committee in the lower
house of Congress on March 3.