The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, criticized the International Monetary Fund for “suffocating” the Argentine economy over the demands required to meet foreign debt obligations, during a speech at the New Development Bank, the Development Bank of the Argentine Republic. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
“You cannot strangle countries as Argentina is doing now with the International Monetary Fund and as it has done with Brazil and other countries,” Lula said on Thursday while celebrating the inauguration of former President Dilma Rousseff at the helm of the National Development Bank.
The Brazilian president said in Shanghai that there are “geniuses who think about the economy and then want the state to save banks from bankruptcy.”https://t.co/DF7cgK4uA0 pic.twitter.com/bZAlfqtEiO
– Telam Agency (AgenciaTelam) April 13, 2023
Lula has advocated trade and finance in local currencies without using the dollar and validated the National Development Bank as a way to become independent from the “anchors” of traditional financing organisations, referring to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
“You cannot suffocate countries as Argentina is doing now with the International Monetary Fund and as you have done with Brazil and other countries.”Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Lula said, “No ruler can rule with a knife to the throat because the country is indebted. Multilateral banks should put tolerance into every renewal of agreements. The dream of creating BRICS was to create a tool for development.” From the Global Southern Development Bank, located in Shanghai. On the first day of his tour in China.
In addition, he criticized the way countries went into debt just to cover the fiscal account and not allocate loans from the International Monetary Fund or private banks to guide development or infrastructure.
“No ruler can rule with a knife in his throat because the country is indebted. Multilateral banks must tolerate every renewal of agreements.”Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
“All countries can borrow, of course. But to carry out business, assets that didn’t exist before, to have more productive capacity. We want to see this world from now on, not the world of those who think geniuses who think about the economy and then want the state bailout.” Banks from bankruptcy.
Lula cited the case of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008 in the United States and the recent crisis of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse. “They gave lessons in wisdom and Switzerland should have invested 8% of its GDP to bail out private banks,” says the former metals sector leader.