So, it seems the Triffin's Dilemma is a popular term permeating every discourse today on monetary policy to geopolitics. Now, I am no economist, but read quite extensively on economics, from Austrian to Keynesian, and frankly, the whole premise of the so called dilemma makes no sense to me.

My reading may be incomplete here, but whenever I look up an explanation, it seems like concocting some positive and normative statements loosely with each other, and sometimes it takes the form of a prediction or forecast, but for heaven's sake, I cannot figure out why is it called a dilemma.

Without further ado, let's assume a country (example, the US) has the privilege of what the globe considers as the reserve currency (dollar). Then, somehow, the dilemma seems to assume the US must run a trade deficit to supply the world with dollar.

Why? Are there laws of physics/nature that dictate the US must supply dollar, as in, the apple must hit the ground instead of flying away? Obviously no. Then where does such a strong statement (it must) come from?

Why does it imply an obligation on the US to supply dollar? In an alternate universe, if the

that would mean worldwide there would be far fewer dollar than there is now. In such a world, what exactly would prevent the other countries still using dollar as a reserve?

A quick search shows in ~1970, the base money (US$) was about 70 billion, around the ball park where it would stay if it was still backed by the same amount of gold. Today, it is about five trillion. So, in an alternate universe where the dollar holdings of foreign entities was proportionately less, what exactly would prevent them from still using dollar as the currency of trade settlement? Obviously, the nominal prices (denominated in $$) would be proportionally lower, but I fail to see the perceived impossiblity of that scenario.

Would the countries say, oh no, there are so few dollars around now (a measly 20 billion or so circulating internationally), we should use the cheap Turkish Lira for trade settlement? Would the factories in Korea, winemakers in Italy, software companies in India and petro-states in Arab rather take pesos or Liras then (because they were and are abundant), escaping from the (hypothetically) scarce dollar?

So it is not a theoretical impossibility. Then, is the thesis supposed to be a prediction (with the foresight of political reality, how people will vote for freebies, and mercantilist nations will print their own money endlessly to dump their export on the US to acquire dollar etc.)? As in, if a country enjoys the privilege of reserve currency, then eventually it will run massive deficit to satisfy the electorates?

Then it makes a little bit more sense, and history has proven Triffin right. But that is possible only if the dollar is taken off the gold standard (which also happened), otherwise, flooding the global financial market with endless paper dollar is a mathematical impossibility. Does it mean Triffin (in early 1960s) also predicted the event of 1971? If he did, that would be a more significant prediction in my opinion, than the advertised thesis of trade deficit.

But in either case, I fail to see in what sense is it a dilemma, and the way it is currently expressed/articulated makes almost no sense to me. In the second interpretation above, we should call it Triffin's prediction. May be I am pedantic, but it just conveys the reality clearly instead of beating around the bushes with words like dilemma (as if it is a puzzle to solve) where the reality is crystal clear.