Brazilian president pushes to move away from USD-dependent international trade

BUENOS AIRES (AA) – Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva has signaled his intent to move away from the US-dollar dependence in international trade.

“Why are all the countries obliged to do their trade in dollars?” said Lula while attending the inauguration ceremony of President Dilma Rousseff at the New Development Bank, formerly known as the BRICS bank in Shanghai.

“Why can’t a bank like BRICS have a currency that can finance the trade relationship between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other BRICS countries?” said Lula.

The former union leader also questioned who made the decision to adopt the dollar “after gold disappeared.”

The Brazilian leader, who returned for a third tenure as president in January, went on to question why other currencies were not used, underscoring that “our currencies were weak, our currencies have no value in other countries.”

Lula has been seeking to move away from dollar dependency for trade, pushing for BRICS — the acronym for five leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — to establish a new trading currency.

In January, Argentina and Brazil floated the idea of creating a common currency to use in the region.

At the time Lula underscored the aim would be to deepen both Latin American nations’ “commercial and financial relations” and raise the possibility of another common currency among nations in the region.