Abstract: A study is performed of the fusion of ¹²C and ¹⁶O nuclei near the Coulomb barrier. Several optical potentials are considered, providing a good description of elastic scattering. The fusion cross section and astrophysical S-factor are obtained using these potentials in a potential model. An example of rotational doublets for values of the global quantum number in the range G = 16–29 is considered. Results are compared to currently available experimental data. The question of choosing a potential and the possibility of a describing the considered effects are studied.