WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Sunday that the government was ready to help struggling Detroit automakers restructure, but he declined to comment in detail on new steps expected to be announced by the White House Monday.
"It's important to know that we want to have a strong automobile industry. We want them to emerge from this period of challenge stronger," Geithner said in an appearance the ABC news program "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
"That's going to require a lot of restructuring, and we're prepared as a government to help that process if we believe it's going to provide the basis for a stronger industry in the future," Geithner said.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce new aid for General Motors Corp (GM.N) and Chrysler LLC on Monday, a day ahead of a government-set deadline for the companies to demonstrate they can be made viable with further assistance.
Both automakers have been kept in operation since the start of the year with $17.4 billion in emergency government loans. They requested another $22 billion to make it through a collapse in demand that has pushed U.S. auto sales to the lowest level in almost three decades.
Stephanopoulos asked Geithner whether Chrysler -- considered by many analysts to be the weakest of the three Detroit automakers -- was "too big to fail."
Geithner declined to answer that directly.
"I'm not going to get into the president's announcement tomorrow," he said in response.
He added: "It's very important for our country that we have a strong automobile industry going forward."
