© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador speaks during a news conference at the Secretariat for Security and Civil Protection in Mexico City, Mexico March 9, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Romero/File Photo
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gave a vote of confidence in the U.S. dollar on Monday after he was asked whether a weak U.S. currency could spur a move to diversify Mexico’s foreign exchange reserves.
“We will continue to consider the dollar as the main currency in the world,” Lopez Obrador told a news conference.
“We have enough reasons not to move to other currencies,” he said, stressing Mexico’s “increasingly close” economic ties with the United States.
The United States is by far Mexico’s largest trading partner, with the two economies having been closely integrated over decades in sectors ranging from energy to automobiles to agriculture.
The dollar remained weak against most of its major peers on Monday as concerns persisted of a potential recession in the United States later this year.
Asked if he would recommend the central bank to diversify Mexico’s foreign exchange reserves, Lopez Obrador said that “even with a financial crisis ahead, the dollar will remain the most important currency in the world.”
Despite concerns about a recession, positive economic indicators helped push the Mexican peso on Friday to its strongest level against the dollar since 2017.
The Mexican president’s remarks follow those of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a fellow leftist, in which he expressed support for an alternative to the US dollar for trade in certain circumstances including within South America.