The Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, He criticized this Thursday the predominant use of the dollar in global trade and accused the International Monetary Fund of “suffocating” economies like Argentina, on the first day of his trip to China.
The leftist leader, whose government recently announced an agreement with Beijing to trade its own currencies -leaving aside the dollar as an intermediary-, is in China to boost economic ties with Brazil’s main trading partner and affirm that his country “is back” on the international scene.
“Why are all countries obliged to do their trade tied to the dollar? (…) Who decided that the dollar would be the (global) currency?” Lula said when participating in the inauguration of the former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) in charge of the BRICS bank (Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa).
“Today a country needs to run after the dollar when it could export in its own currency” (…) Why can’t a bank like the BRICS have a currency that can finance the commercial relationship between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other BRICS countries?” he added.
Lula also launched harsh questions against the IMF alluding to accusations that the Washington-based institution imposes draconian cuts in public spending in troubled countries like Argentina in exchange for loans.
“No bank can be suffocating the economies of countries as the IMF is doing now in Argentina or as they did with Brazil for so long and with all the third world countries,” he said.
The first day in Shanghai had a particularly economic component with a visit to a Huawei research center.
Huawei President Liang Hua led Lula through an exhibition showing the firm’s technological advances and its extensive presence in Brazil, a contrast to the United States, which prohibits its companies from doing business with the Chinese company.