Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says Secretary of State John Kerry's comment that the dollar will suffer if the United States walks away from the Iran nuclear deal are worthy of, and have received, much mockery.
"Yeah, that's silly," Rubio told radio host Glenn Beck on Monday. "That's a silly thing for him to say. I mean, it's just absurd."
Kerry was quoted by Reuters as saying the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency could be challenged if the U.S. went back on the deal but kept in place sanctions.
"If we turn around and nix the deal and then tell them, 'You're going to have to obey our rules and sanctions anyway,' that is a recipe, very quickly … for the American dollar to cease to be the reserve currency of the world," Kerry declared.
"Everyone laughed at him when he said it, including people around the world in the financial market," Rubio continued. "Our reserve status has nothing to do with our relationship with Iran or anyone else for that matter. And it's just really an absurd statement."
President Obama made similar comments last week, saying the idea of the U.S. walking away from the Iran deal but keeping tough, unilateral sanctions imposed was a fantasy.
"We cannot dictate the foreign, economic and energy policies of every major power in the world," said the president ."In order to even try to do that, we would have to sanction, for example, some of the world's largest banks. We'd have to cut off countries like China from the American financial system. And since they happen to be major purchasers of our debt, such actions could trigger severe disruptions in our own economy, and, by way, raise questions internationally about the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. That's part of the reason why many of the previous unilateral sanctions were waived."
