Western sanctions on Russia are leading to trade being denominated in other currencies between eg, India and Russia. Iran and China are both in on this too.

Aside from a general undermining of the US, what are the implications?

As far as I can see, some would be:

  • The US ability to interfere with other countries’ foreign currency reserves is severely limited (since those reserves don’t need to be in dollars)
  • The US ability to print endless money might come under pressure, potentially endangering its ability to spend freely on its military
  • Financialisation and de-industrialisation bite harder as US financial services might become less useful and America has lost much of its advantage in actually making stuff.
  • Lessened capacity for the US to exert hegemony over other states via fiscal and monetary domination/coercion (a la gramsci)

Is that stuff right? And what else is there?

PS, sorry if this isn’t quite the right community, I’m new here.

  • @RagingHungryPanda
    link
    21 year ago

    The advantages are close to what you’ve stated. By having the world use the US dollar, the US is able to cut them off from trade from most of the world. The more the US does that, the more it’s tempting for other countries to find an alternative.

    The downside is that you need a fairly stable currency that has some amount of ubiquity to replace it.

    Peter Zeihan did a pretty good explanation of de-dollarization and BRICS

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTwwNoh0E6Q&pp=ygUecGV0ZXIgemVpaGFuIGRlIGRvbGxhcml6YXRpb24g