“Why should every country have to be tied to the dollar for trade?” asks Brazil’s President Lula during a ceremony in Shanghai while accusing IMF of “asphyxiating countries’ economies.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticised the outsize role of the US dollar in the world economy and lashed out at the International Monetary Fund [IMF] during an official visit to China.
“Why should every country have to be tied to the dollar for trade?… Who decided the dollar would be the [world’s] currency?” Lula said on Thursday in Shanghai at a ceremony to inaugurate his political ally Dilma Rousseff as president of the development bank set up by the BRICS nations [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa].
“Why can’t a bank like the BRICS bank have a currency to finance trade between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other BRICS countries?… Today, countries have to chase after dollars to export, when they could be exporting in their own currencies.”
Lula also had strong words for the IMF, alluding to accusations the IMF forces overly harsh spending cuts on cash-strapped countries like Brazil’s neighbour Argentina in exchange for bailout loans.
“No bank should be asphyxiating countries’ economies the way the IMF is doing now with Argentina, or the way they did with Brazil for a long time and every third-world country,” he said.
“No leader can work with a knife to their throat because [their country] owes money.”
‘Brazil is back!’
Lula, who took office in January, is looking to reposition Brazil as a global go-between and deal broker, seeking friendly ties across the board after four years of relative isolation under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
He is due to meet with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, and also visited US President Joe Biden in February.
“Brazil is back!” Lula promised in Shanghai, where he arrived on Wednesday night.
“The time when Brazil was absent from major world decisions is in the past. We are back on the international stage, after an inexplicable absence.”
One of the main topics on the agenda when Lula and Xi meet on Friday is expected to be the Ukraine war.
Both China and Brazil have positioned themselves as mediators in the conflict, despite Western alleagtions that they are overly cosy with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Both countries have refused to join Western nations in imposing sanctions on Russia for its invasion.
Source: trtworld
