His comments came as a senior Treasury official told reporters that Mr Geithner will urge other nations to join the US in taking aggressive action to fight the crisis at this weekend's meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven industrialised nations.
“We will certainly be asking the others about their plans and encouraging them to take bold measures to help sustain the global economy,” the official said.
He said the US understood that countries had “different scope for actions” and indicated that the US would establish whether countries were doing everything they are able to, given, for instance, their existing debt burdens.