The Kremlin said any US attempts to force other countries to use the dollar would backfire, after US President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on all BRICS countries if they create their own currency, Reuters reported.
Trump yesterday demanded that the BRICS member states undertake not to create a new currency and not to support any other currency that could replace the dollar in international trade. Trump has warned that otherwise he may impose 100 percent tariffs.
The BRIC organization was created after a meeting of the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China in St. Petersburg in 2006. Four years later, the Republic of South Africa was agreed to join the format, which was renamed BRICS. Since then, other countries have joined the format. They have long discussed the issue of replacing the dollar, but this discussion gained momentum after the West imposed sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
"More and more countries are switching to using national currencies in their trade and foreign economic activity," Peskov said today in response to a journalist's question about Trump's statement. If Washington resorts to "economic force" to force the BRICS countries to use the dollar, it will have the opposite effect, Peskov predicted. "This will only strengthen the tendency to switch to national currencies" in international trade, the Kremlin spokesman pointed out. "The dollar is starting to lose its appeal as a reserve currency for a number of countries," Peskov also said.
He also comments on other topics on the international agenda.
In response to a question about today's visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Kyiv, Peskov said, quoted by TASS: "Germany continues the course of unconditional support for Ukraine. At the same time, we can really just remember with satisfaction that the first contact between the Russian president and the German chancellor in a long time took place recently. Dialogue, of course, is always a positive phenomenon". On November 15, Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Scholz and discussed the situation in Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesman noted that Putin did not convey any messages to Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky through the German chancellor.
Peskov made a connection between the protests that swept Georgia over the government's decision to freeze EU membership talks and Ukraine's Maidan in 2014.
"We have seen similar events in a number of countries. "The most direct parallel that can be drawn is the Maidan events in Ukraine," Peskov said. In his words, the events in Georgia have "all the signs of an attempt to carry out an Orange Revolution".
Regarding the situation in Syria and the escalation of violence after the sudden offensive of jihadist groups that began last week, Peskov said: "Of course, we continue to support President Bashar Assad" and added that Russia continues its contacts with the government in Damascus and analyzes the situation.