Obama blames India, China for spike in oil prices
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US President Barack Obama sought to blame burgeoning growth in India, China and Brazil for the raising oil prices in a bid to deflect the criticism of the Republicans in an election year who are attributing the surge to his failed energy policy.
Citing rising auto sales in these countries, he said as people in India and China get wealthier they will buy more cars and fill them up like Americans do, driving up oil prices.
Although Obama did not did not lay out a plan to deal with energy issues at home, he did call for removing subsidies to oil companies and investing more in clean alternatives.
"When you start hearing a bunch of folks saying somehow that there's some simple solution, you can turn a nozzle and suddenly we're going to be getting a lot more oil, that’s not just how it works.
"Over the long term, the biggest reason oil prices will rise is because of growing demand in countries like China and India and Brazil," Obama said in a speech in New Hampshire.
Obama travelled to Nashua in New Hampshire to deliver an address in energy and gas prices, which has crossed USD 4 per gallon here and has started pinching common man’s pocket.
Observers say the Republicans, in a presidential election year, are trying to exploit the issue in their favour to defeat Obama, who is seeking re-election.
"Just think about this. In five years, the number of cars on the road in China more than tripled. Over the last five years, the number of cars tripled. Nearly 10 million cars were added in China alone in 2010 -- 10 million cars just in one country in one year. So that’s using up a lot of oil," he said.
"Those numbers are only going to get bigger over time. As places like China and India get wealthier, they're going to want to buy cars like we do, and they're going to want to fill them up like we do, and that’s going to drive up demand," Obama said.
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