Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized U.S. sanctions for accelerating the global shift away from the U.S. dollar, noting that 95% of Russian trade now uses national currencies.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin spoke out against U.S. sanctions, saying they are pulling global economies away from the U.S. dollar and making it less useful for trade and savings worldwide. He said that because of these bans, Russia now does 95% of its trade with other countries in its own currency.
Putin talked about the BRICS countries’ growing economic power, saying that they now have a bigger part of the global GDP than the G7 and make a big difference in the growth of the world economy.
Putin Criticizes US Dollar Sanctions, Points Out Economic Dominance of BRICS
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has criticized U.S. sanctions that make it harder for Russia to use the U.S. dollar. He said these steps are making people worldwide move away from the American dollar. At a meeting of the BRICS media on Friday, Putin said:
All the countries of the world are now thinking of whether it is worth to use the dollar if the US limits the dollar use as a universal international settlement unit due to political considerations.
Putin said, “The dollar amount used is slowly but surely going down bit by bit, both in payments and in reserves.” He also said that even traditional U.S. partners are lowering their dollar reserves because of this.
Putin also said that sanctions were hitting China, stressing, “And what is happening with China—one sanction after another also.” And this has nothing to do with politics; it has to do with the growth of the Chinese economy and the use of different politically driven sanctions to try to stop that growth.
Putin said these limits have caused Russia to switch 95% of its trade with other countries to using their currencies. Putin clarified that this change was caused by sanctions from other countries: “As for finances, we did not give up the dollar as the universal currency; we were not allowed to use it.” The Russian leader went on:
But now 95% of the whole Russian foreign trade is being made with our partners in national currencies. They did it by their own hands.
Putin laughed off Western predictions that Russia’s economy would fall apart if it stopped using the dollar. He said, “Western countries thought that ‘everything will collapse’ in Russia when it stopped using the dollar.” No, nothing fell; it’s building on a new foundation.
Putin talked about the rising economic impact of BRICS countries at the BRICS Business Forum in Moscow on the same day. The BRICS nations now have a bigger share of the global GDP than the G7. “Take 1992 as an example.
The Group of Seven makes up 45.5% of the world’s GDP that year, while the BRICS countries make up 16.7%.” Now? “Our group has a 37.4% share in 2023, and the Group of Seven has a 29.3% share,” Putin said. He talked about how BRICS is becoming more important as the major driver of global economic growth and said that this will only continue. Putin also said:
The gap is widening, and it will widen, this is inevitable.
Putin says that BRICS countries have been responsible for more than 40% of global GDP growth over the last few decades. This year, their average economic growth rate is expected to be 4%, while the G7 countries’ rate is only 1.7%.
The rates in the G7 countries are only 1.7%, which is higher than both those rates and the rates worldwide. “The rates around the world will be 3.2%,” Putin said. He also said that the BRICS countries control important areas like food, metals, energy, and agriculture, which is important for long-term global growth.
Also, on Monday, the Kremlin’s press service said that Russia and Iran now use their own currencies for more than 96% of their payments.
