President Barack Obama declared Monday that insurance giant American International Group is in financial straits because of “recklessness and greed” and said he intends to stop it from paying out millions in executive bonuses.

“It’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay,” Obama said at the outset of an appearance to announce help for small businesses hurt by the deep recession.

“How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat,” the president said.

Obama spoke out in the wake of reports that surfaced over the weekend saying that financially strapped American International Group Inc. was paying substantial bonuses to executives.

Noting that AIG has “received substantial sums” of federal aid from the federal government, Obama said he has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

A White House official told the Wall Street Journal that the Treasury Department will “use a planned $30 billion infusion into AIG to compel the company to repay the bonuses promised to employees of its financial-products group, which is responsible for selling the exotic financial instruments that brought the company to near-collapse.”

Said Obama: “All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multimillion-dollar bonuses. And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules.”

“This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents,” he added. “It’s about our fundamental values.”