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Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa is in Brazil on Monday to discuss the details of an agreement with radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that would allow Argentina to pay for Brazilian imports using the Chinese yuan instead of the U.S. dollar, the Argentina state-run Télam news agency reported.
Both Argentina and Brazil’s leftist governments have made significant efforts throughout the year to decouple themselves from the U.S. dollar and replace it with the Chinese yuan in their trading operations with China.
Argentina, under departing leftist President Alberto Fernández, is currently enduring a dire economic situation that has nearly depleted its U.S. dollar foreign reserves. The country signed an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party in April to stop using dollars to pay for Chinese imports and embrace the yuan instead. Argentina has also begun to pay its over $40 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in yuan in favor of the dollar as of June.
In March, Brazil signed a similar agreement with China to discard the U.S. dollar and embrace the yuan in bilateral trade.
According to Télam, Massa — who is also the Argentine leftist government’s presidential candidate in the upcoming October election — will discuss the agreement’s details with Lula on Monday afternoon. Massa will also reportedly hold a meeting with Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad prior to his encounter with Lula.
