Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned 329 million Americans that their government is deliberately and deceitfully attempting to destroy the US dollar.
“It seems to me that the United States is making a very big mistake by using the dollar as a sanctions instrument… by preventing payment in dollars for the sanctioned products,” Putin told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble on Wednesday.
Countries facing US sanctions, like Russia, “have no other choice, we are simply forced to switch to settlements in other currencies,” he said.
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Gamble had asked Putin about the possibility of using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to sell oil and gas, something Putin cautioned was “too early,” due to crypto’s volatility.
Russia has no plans to ditch the US currency, Putin noted, but “if the policy of the American authorities continues… then we will not have to do anything, the US will itself undermine confidence in the dollar.”
Rt.com reports: Even US allies were reducing their dollar holdings and reliance on US currency in mutual trade, the Russian leader pointed out. Not just because the dollar has been weaponized for sanctions, but also because Washington is devaluing the currency at home, by printing money and raising the national debt.
“For the first time, probably in history, inflation in the United States is growing at a rate that has not happened for a long time,” Putin told CNBC.
Everyone is now asking the question: what next? What will the US economic authorities do with this colossal debt? What will they do, carry out some manipulations with the dollar, lower its value?
The US is basically “sawing off the branch they’re sitting on,” Putin said, “by undermining the dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency for the sake of short-term political gain at home, but harming their strategic economic interests” in the long term.
