To 'welcome' Clinton, Dr M says US will kill if its currency unused

Mahathir - not one to be left out of the limelight!

Malaysia Chronicle

Ever keen to be in the limelight, former premier Mahathir Mohamad could be counted to wallop one of his favorite targets – the United States – ahead of the arrival of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is due to make her first official visit to Malaysia.

During the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, as his then-deputy Anwar Ibrahim won accolades from world leaders, a bitter Mahathir attracted global notoriety for attacking a series of targets including Jews, Australia and the U.S.

On Monday, it was clear that 85-year old Mahathir still hungers for the world stage even though his increasingly strident racism and extremism is unlikely to open any more doors for him regardless of the amount of noise he makes.

“The U.S. may take the kind of action (it is) fond of, by invading your country. If (you try to use another currency) instead of the US dollar for trade, it will kill you,” Malaysiakini reported Mahathir as saying at a financial function in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

Not untrue but not new

He also accused the U.S. of bankruptcy, described its currency as “toilet paper” and advised the Malaysian government to switch to using the gold dinar.

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“They have no money. They are in fact bankrupt. We have reserves to back our ringgit, we have more than RM300 million to back our currency,” said Mahathir.

Despite the harshly worded comments couched to shock, financial analysts dismissed the veteran leader’s caution.

According to them, whatever Mahathir said was not untrue - it was just not new. And the U.S. remained Malaysia's top trading partner and FDI supplier.

The analysts accused him of wanting to bask in the limelight of Clinton’s visit. She is scheduled to arrive on Monday and will meet with Malaysian officials before departing for Papua New Guinea on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s aides have announced that he is down with chicken-pox and will not be able to meet with Clinton. There is also speculation that Najib’s Umno party is placing great pressure on Clinton not to meet with Anwar, now the Opposition Leader, during her visit.