WASHINGTON, USA — US President Barack Obama said Friday he would veto a Wall Street reform bill that lacked tough rules for derivatives — complex financial instruments implicated in sparking the financial crisis.

As a political row intensifies over the next big ticket item on his agenda, Obama also fired off a warning to Republicans opposed to what he has termed the most sweeping overhaul of the finance industry since the 1930s.

Obama delivered the veto threat at a meeting Friday of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board (ERAB), led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

“I will veto legislation that does not bring the derivatives market under control and some sort of regulatory framework assures that we don’t have the same sort of crisis we have seen in the past,” Obama said.

A day after meeting Republican leaders at a bipartisan meeting at the White House on the issue, Obama also stepped up the pressure on his political foes over the Bill.

“So in the coming weeks, every member of Congress is going to have to make a decision,” Obama said.

“Are they going to side with the special interests and the status quo?

“Or are they going to side with the American people? And anyone who opposes this reform is going to be leaving taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like the one that we’ve just seen ever happens again, and I consider that unacceptable.”

Republicans have warned that if the US government imposes tough new regulations on derivatives, firms that want to trade in the instruments will simply look elsewhere than the United States.

Derivatives are a financial instrument linked to one or more other assets, for instance a bundle of mortgages or debts.