BEIJING: Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is set to forge closer ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting in Beijing on Friday, a day after he lashed out at the power of the US dollar and the IMF.

The veteran leftist, whose government recently announced a deal with Beijing to trade in their own currencies — ditching the dollar as an intermediary — is in China to boost ties with his country’s top trading partner and spread his message that “Brazil is back” as a key player on the global stage.

He was greeted by President Xi on Friday afternoon at a red carpet ceremony outside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, where a military band played the national anthems of Brazil and China. The two were due to hold talks later in the day.

Earlier, Lula took aim at the US dollar, criticising its ubiquitous use in almost all global trade transactions.

“Who decided the dollar would be the (world’s) currency?” Lula said 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 International Monetary Fund, 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.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2023