The Decline Of Dollar Hegemony

When future historians write the obituary on Dollar Hegemony, they will be certain to mention how it was a tragic case of suicide.
The first BRIC summit happened in 2009, partly in response to how Wall Street blew up the global financial system. In 2013 China announced the New Silk Road initiative. It started picking up speed in 2014, after Russia entered the era of permanent sanctions. The BRICS Development Bank was created, and Russia began converting hundreds of billions of dollars into gold.
Russia stopped selling it's oil in dollars in 2021, before the Ukraine invasion, joining Iran, which stopped selling oil in dollars in 2007.
Meanwhile, China set up it's own oil bourse, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), in 2021. China is very gradually reducing it's holdings of U.S. treasuries.
The Eurasian Economic Union, consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, was a free trade zone created in 2015.
This gradual trend could have gone on like this for many more years, but then Russia invaded Ukraine and the U.S. decided to fully weaponize the U.S. dollar, and now it's too late to slam on the brakes.

Iran was kicked off of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) in 2012. Iran didn't develop their own version of SWIFT, SEPAM, until 2019. Russia, expecting this to happen sometime in the future, began creating their own system, SPFS in 2014, although it wasn't fully operational until 2020. China began developing their Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in 2015.

Everything came to a head in February 2022 when Russian banks were kicked off of SWIFT. When China refused to follow America's lead, the U.S. threatened to kick China's banks off of SWIFT.

U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Todd Young introduced the Crippling Unhinged Russian Belligerence and Chinese Involvement in Putin’s Schemes (CURB CIPS) Act or the “CURB CIPS Act of 2022” to sanction Chinese financial institutions that conduct transactions with any Russian financial institutions using alternative financial messaging systems (including China’s CIPs system and Russia’s SPFS network) to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). The bill would freeze or terminate any U.S.based accounts connected to Chinese financial institutions – or block the U.S.-based property of such institutions – that engage in transactions with a Russian financial institution using either CIPS or SPFS.

The U.S. blinked when China refused to back down, but now the cat was out of the bag. China dramatically increased their gold imports. What quickly became apparent was that, while Europe was totally on board with any and all sanctions the U.S. wanted to impose on Russia, the West badly misjudged the continent of Asia.
The biggest mistake the West made was thinking that India was going to fall into line.

Hit by more Western sanctions on Russian banking channels, Moscow and New Delhi are now working out a new payment system for defence equipment already ordered, including leasing of the third nuclear submarine.

Sources in the Indian defence and security establishment also told ThePrint that another area of concern is appreciation of the Russian ruble vis-à-vis rupee. This means payment to Russia becomes more expensive for India.

In August last year, both rupee and the Russian ruble had the same value. But the Russian ruble is today valued at 0.75 against one rupee.

The problem here is that Russia is a net exporter, and has been for a long time. When Russia got shut out of the global financial system they had to insist on other nations to pay in rubles. This made the Russian ruble the strongest currency in the world in 2022.
Besides the West expecting the ruble to crash, when the opposite happened. The West also expected Russia's economy to collapse. It was impossible for Russia's economy not to take a hit from all of those sanctions, the hit wasn't nearly as bad as predicted.

putin2.PNG

While the West demanded that other nations stop buying Russian oil, India dramatically increased its buying of Russian oil. It's almost as if India doesn't give a damn what the West thinks. It's almost like India remembers being a colony of the West, and didn't appreciate it.

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India also increased its imports of Russian coal and natural gas, paying in Chinese yuan, UAE dirham, Hong Kong dollar, and euro.
An even bigger surprise to the West was when Turkey, a NATO ally, didn't follow the script.

Turkey’s exports to Russia grew 46 per cent by value over the past three months compared with the same period last year as Ankara allowed its companies to step into the gap created by an exodus of western businesses.
...A four-hour meeting between presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin in the Russian resort of Sochi this month culminated in a joint promise of expanding collaboration on energy and trade, triggering warnings from western capitals that Turkey could face retaliatory steps if it acts as a conduit for sanctions evasion.

The U.S. had imposed sanctions on Turkey back in 2020 for buying Russian weapon systems. Interestingly, India bought those very same weapon systems, but the U.S. balked at sanctioning them.
Vietnam has actually looked to strengthen ties with Russia, while Laos has remained faithful to Russia despite political and economic pressure. Why has Laos taken that risk?

In December 2020, Russian troops began helping their Lao counterparts to clear unexploded ordnance, or UXO, left over from the Vietnam War.
...Last December, Moscow provided US$12 million to upgrade the Mittaphab Hospital, one of Laos’ main hospitals.

It's amazing how much people will appreciate just a tiny amount of help. Will Washington ever figure that out?

Recently Iran applied to join the EAEU free trade zone, while SPFS and SEPAM will be joined through a ruble-Iranian rial currency exchange.
And then there is China. For months the western media was telling us that China would smarten up and kick Russia to the curb. Well, that's not what happened.

the volume of yuan-ruble trading surged over 1,000% from February.

Other Asian nations such as Belarus, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, Mongolia, have stuck by Russia as well.

So what does this mean to the dollar? Well, consider what happened to Russia's currency when they started trading in rubles rather than dollars.

In August 2021, the exchange rate was around 72 roubles (in round figures) to a dollar; after the announcement of sanctions, it went up in favour of the dollar to as much as 136 roubles to a dollar, but then the rouble climbed up steeply so that on August 11, 2022, the rate was around 61 roubles to a dollar (60.6957 to be exact). Over the 12-month period, August 2021 to August 2022, there has been an appreciation in the value of the rouble vis-a-vis the dollar amounting to over 22%.

So if people stop using dollars so much it is logical to assume that we should expect the opposite to happen. This goes double for the U.S. considering that we have the largest trade deficits in the world.
Which means the dollar will lose value for buying stuff we need on things made overseas, which will push the trade deficit higher, which will cause the dollar to fall more.

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feels much the same way as India:

While the West demanded that other nations stop buying Russian oil, India dramatically increased its buying of Russian oil. It's almost as if India doesn't give a damn what the West thinks. It's almost like India remembers being a colony of the West, and didn't appreciate it.

I’m very much with the majority on this point as well.

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15 users have voted.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

It only makes sense. Comparing independent nations economies to the dollar is a purely
wall street illusion. The reason we are experiencing unbridled inflation is the dollar is losing
it's relative worth. What cost 50 cents yesterday now costs a dollar. So the value of the US
dollar is shrinking. The buying power of our national 'rate of exchange' drops as the national debt
increases. The economic press insists it is just a cyclic phenomena. While more countries use
their own standards to record transactions, even the theft of weaker nations resources are not
enough to float the sinking buck. Encroaching poverty is a feature of our system.

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@QMS

The reason we are experiencing unbridled inflation is the dollar is losing it's relative worth.

As the “next targeted” China will certainly be disinclined to maintain its current level of USDollar holdings. Investing in your own demise would not be a rational response to recent US provocations.

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7 users have voted.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

earthling1's picture

@ovals49
China is spending their dollars as fast as they can. It's what is funding the BRI in other countries to build infrastructure, using materials and labor from those countries. A win-win for all, until those countries are left holding dollars they can't get rid of.
Many of those Asian, South American, and Middle Eastern countries are unloading their dollars as quickly as they can also.
All those digital dollars are flooding back here now. Soon it will become a tsunami.
Another spectacular backfire by our "brilliant" leaders.
IMHO

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

karl pearson's picture

Why does the U.S. continue to misjudge so many geopolitical situations? For example, experts have to be aware of the long term relationship between Russia and India. Maybe part of the problem is that Washington discounts the level of mutual trust between these 2 countries, because trust is not important to D. C. foreign policy insiders. Why would somebody trust this kind of talk that has been around for decades?

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shaharazade's picture

Russia invaded the Ukraine? Nah. Hillary did it in 2014. This is too Russian hating and blaming. Dag get grip. No one needs more cold war bs. What a waste of time. Oil wars. Same old bs. Geopolitical nastiness. Seriously hope the Indians kick our butt. Somebody needs to.

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@shaharazade

This is too Russian hating and blaming. Dag get grip. No one needs more cold war bs. What a waste of time.

I don't think you understand it.

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earthling1's picture

Prices are not going up, the dollar is losing value.
The "Dollar Store" is charging $1.25 now, because the dollar is worth less.
It's all about narrative.
Also, too many of us still repeat the official narrative that Russia invaded Ukraine. This is not true. Russia intervened in eastern Ukraine to stop an imminent genocide of Russian speaking people. Or R2P.
The ethnic cleansing of eastern Ukraine was to make way for a future invasion of Russia proper.
The best analogy I have read is that the western empire was building a Death Star and Russia is destroying it before it becomes operational.
How we here in America can defend ourselves against the dollars demise is the $64,000 question.

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14 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1

Also, too many of us still repeat the official narrative that Russia invaded Ukraine. This is not true.

Where is the Russian army right now? Is it right now standing in Ukraine? Is it uninvited?
Then yes, Russia invaded Ukraine. To say otherwise is illogical.

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earthling1's picture

@gjohnsit
is standing in Donetsk Peoples Republic and the Luhansk Peoples Republic.

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9 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1

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3 users have voted.

to fools gold.

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5 users have voted.

The clowns in D.C. (among other capitols) are so childish:

"U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Todd Young introduced the Crippling Unhinged Russian Belligerence and Chinese Involvement in Putin’s Schemes (CURB CIPS) Act or the “CURB CIPS Act of 2022” "

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assume that the invasion of Ukraine was done for the stated reasons - to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Donbass and to "denazify" the Ukranian military. (and therefore the Ukranian state) Both goals are impossible.
American missiles have more range than any buffer zone the Russians can build without occupying the entirety of the Ukraine. Doing such would certainly trigger WW3. Effectively since Zelensky believes this he has no reason to defy the West and negotiate, in his eyes he can not lose, or more truthfully he cannot and will not be allowed to admit defeat. As for "denazification" as long as the Nazis (or to use the Ukranian term "ultra nationalists") control the nation (and the West demands that they do, say so or not) as long as the Zelensky government exists the nation will always be run by Nazis, and like before any attempt to change that will trigger WW3.
So, Russia can either sit about where they are until either they run out of willingness to take casualties (leading to a genocide in the Donbass and then W3) or America runs out of missiles - more likely Europe will freeze over the winter and/or roast over the summer and America will go bankrupt. (this is also a WW3 scenario)

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On to Biden since 1973

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

...the American dollar will be the first sovereign currency to earn a Darwin Award.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!