The US has just 4-5% of the world’s population, and it’s isolated from the Eurasian continent which has ~70% of the world’s population, or ~ 85-90% with Africa included. Economically, Eurasian continents are competitors to the American Dollar.
After WW II, Europe and Asia were in crisis, but the US emerged as the world leader and the dollar became the world’s reserve currency.This allows the size of the US economy to be highly scaled up as it can print as many as it needed, instead of being sized according to the fundamentals.
To be the world’s reserve currency, the dollar must be circulated in the world. The US created a huge consumption-based economy and shifted manufacturing outside, so that dollars flowed out of the US to emerging markets like India, Vietnam, China or Japan, Indonesia.
In US , interest rates are kept low , so the angel investors invest their pool in markets which offer a reasonable rate of return probably Emerging markets through Govt. Securities.
To make products, emerging markets demands fuel or energy . The US created the Petrol-dollar scheme, so that dollar is circulated to Saudi Arabia, Head of the OPEC+ Countries.
With the US stock and financial market much more lucrative than other countries, the dollars from Saudi are attracted back to the US. Money printed in the US to exchange for goods from outside eventually ends up with the Wall Streets, where the rich gets richer. And that completes the cycle of circulation of the dollars.
US is Deindustrialising but it is financialising, making the emerging markets dependent on Dollar.
A technological gap is maintained between US and other countries through attracting the top talents around the world in to their Science and Tech. industries ,so that the US benefits from highly lucrative high-tech product/patent exports, while low profit manufacturing sector is outsourced to China and Vietnam. Yet, they complain about global warming by outsourcing the manufacturing of chips and electronics goods in emerging markets .
If China or Japan bring back all the dollars and exchange to their local currencies, it inflates the local currencies, making their exports expensive. So, China and Japan use some of the dollars to buy US debts (treasury bonds). That’s why the US, a rich country, is in-debt to China which has just 1/5th of the US’ GDP per capita.
And by holding US treasury bills, China and Japan have to support the US dollar, if the US dollar collapses, their hard earn money would become worthless.
After Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” in 2011, which aimed to contain China, China introduced the Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) in 2013 and diverted some of the dollars into it to reduce the risk of putting all eggs in one basket, and hoping that after these countries are developed, China would have a wider trade market.
With a huge population, if Asia and Africa develop rapidly, the share of the US’ economy shrinks, then the Euro could replace it as the world’s reserve currency. When that happens, the US would no longer be able to print money out of nothing without a hyper inflation like Venezuela. Then the size of the US economy has to fall back to the fundamentals, which today is quite a lot smaller than the inflated economy. That’s why no country in Eurasia is allowed to catch up with the US’ economy.
When Japan was catching up fast on the US in the 1980s, they were knocked down to a three decade stagnancy by appreciating the Japanese Yen. And in the last 30 years, the US created conflicts, wars and color revolutions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa to destabilise the Eurasia-Africa supercontinent.
When the US prints a lot of money, other countries’ foreign reserves in dollars shrink in value. Furthermore, to prevent exports to the US becoming expensive, these countries have to print money too, which devalues the savings of the people, and causing inflations in these countries. It’s estimated that our savings devalue by 6-9% per year after the abolishment of the gold-backed Bretton Woods system, after which the US prints money based on just the creditability of the dollar.
North America is relatively easy to defend, yet the US has a military budget more than the total of the next 9 countries in the top 10, to protect the dollar with its 800 military bases worldwide.
The US had no mercy on threats to the dollar:
* In 2000 Saddam Hussein said he would start selling oil in Euros not Dollars.
Saddam was hanged by the US.
* In 2009 Gaddafi made Libya export oil in Gold Dinars, not in dollar or Euro.
Gaddafi was killed by US-backed NTC.
* Syria had an independent Central Bank NOT under Federal Reserve controlled Bank of International Settlements. Obama attempted to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.
* Iran has been trading oil in currencies other than US dollars since 2011. Iran was being sanctioned by the US.
* After being sanctioned in 2014, Putin started to trade in non-dollar. In 2019, Putin completely ditched dollars in oil trades, sold almost all the US treasury bonds, is now the forerunner in de-dollarization by trading in rouble only.
The US tried to topple Putin by supporting Alexei Navalny. And now the Russia-Ukraine conflict war to weaken Russia by imposing Sanctions.
US supplying the weapons like tactical missiles, anti tank missiles,high artillery rocket machineries etc. in the name of democracy and peace keeping and using Ukraine key leader as a puppet in the conflict.
* China introduced the Belt and Road Initiatives in 2013 which helps many countries to develop and speed up the integration of Eurasia, used non-dollar in oil trades with Iran and Russia, introduced the CIPS, an alternative to the West’s SWIFT system which has been weaponized by America, China’s economy and high technology are catching up fast.
China has become the US’ #1 target. Visit of Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan shows that it is provocative action by the US.
If a country supports the dollar, it’s being looted; if a country doesn’t support the dollar, the government is changed by the US. This is financial slavery.
The Fed has printed 80% of all US dollars in existence since Jan 2020. There was $4.02 trillion dollars in circulation at the beginning of 2020. The number reached $20.08 trillion by Oct 2021. This amounted to an astronomical 30 trillions debt. Coupled with a global rising urge to diversify into non-dollar reserves caused by the US’ sanctions to 39 countries, the dollar is in a creditability crisis. This is the major development which shapes geopolitics in the world today.
The US cannot have direct wars with Russia and China because they are nuclear armed. Proxy wars put the battlefields outside of the US, and the US would looked like an outsider. Remember in the 1980s, the US supported the Afghan Mujaheddin in a proxy war against the USSR. Russia and China have clearly defined their redlines. US would use its collaborators Zelensky and Tsai to push across the redlines to trigger the wars, and it would sell weapons to its allies in NATO and AUKUS, and get them to support the wars.
After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, US President Bill Clinton had two choices: (a) to integrate Russia into Europe and abolish NATO, OR, (b) to slowly alienate Russia to keep Russia and Europe divided. Clinton chose the latter, because if there’s no more Russia “threat”, there would be no more NATO to control Europe. As the first NATO Secretary General, Lionel Ismay described the military role of NATO: “To keep America IN, to keep Russia OUT, to keep Germany (Europe) DOWN”. NATO also allows the US to place missiles in Europe, so if a war break out in Europe, missiles would be flying between Moscow the East and Lisbon in the West, while the US remains safe across the Atlantic.
And politically, the EU is an American creation, as much as a European one. It’s much easier for Washington to control ruling elites at Brussels than having to control all politicians in Europe. The EU is used an ally or a sacrificial depending on the geopolitical needs of Washington.
The proxy war in Ukraine:
Divided Europe from Russia and divided Eurasia.
Killed Nord Stream-I and II gas pipelines in the Baltic sea and German firm Energie Baden- Wuerttemberg has signed up for gas from America Venture Global LNG for 20 years. The US gained control over energy supply to Europe.
Norway, a country which always raises an issue about climate change is now using the fossil fuels and natural gas to supply the Europe which is less compared to Nord Stream gas pipeline and making the Norwegian PM as Secretary General of NATO could make it sense, how the west is playing proxy war
Created continuity for the Military Industrial Complex after pulling out of Afghanistan.
The war has strengthened the dollar. Dollar against Euro is now the highest since NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia in Mar 1999 (happened two months after the official launch of Euro as the currency of the EU, which threatened the dollar). A strong dollar together with the Fed’s interest rise in 2022 cause capitals from all over the world to flow into the US’ economy, while collapsing other economies, like Sri Lanka.
Elsewhere, A month after ignoring Biden’s demand to increase oil production, secretary-general of OPEC, Mohammad Barkindo died unexpectedly on July 6 2022.
As a counter measure to Biden administration, OPEC+ cut out the supply of oil output and increased the oil prices.
US threatened Saudi on consequences of it , but unofficially Saudi is backed on by Moscow. So , Biden made a plan to visit Saudi before Mid term Elections in US .
Protests have been going on in France and Germany on the soaring energy prices and demanding to opt out of NATO, which is a threat to US.
So, there is a need for sovereign nations to get out of this trap and act upon their own interests.