Iran advances de-dollarization among BRICS members to counter US dominance

A correspondent in Tehran

Jul 14, 2024

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin (2L) meets with Iran's conservative Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (2R) on the sidelines of a BRICS (the bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) parliamentary forum in Saint Petersburg on July 11, 2024. — VALERY SHARIFULIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

TERHAN — Iran renewed diplomatic efforts to ditch the US dollar from business interactions with its key partners, encouraging others to do so with the aim of weakening the US' standing in global economic calculations.

Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was in the Russian city of St. Petersburg to attend the 10th Parliamentary Forum of the BRICS group of nations. The economic alliance, which originally comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has seen several new additions, including Iran, whose ascension was made official in January.

In an address to the summit, covered by the ISNA News Agency, Ghalibaf highlighted the need for de-dollarization as a "countermeasure" against what he called US pressure on emerging economies. According to the Iranian parliament speaker, by ditching the US dollar, world nations would be able to neutralize one of the "main levers of American influence."

The plan to remove the US currency from business ties with partners has increasingly been one of the Islamic Republic's many foreign policy strategies aimed at mitigating the impacts of sanctions imposed by its leading adversary, the United States.