I'm sure someone will provide a more detailed answer, but basically the US insisted on everyone using the dollar as their reserve currency. After going off the gold standard, the petrodollar was created, which was a deal with the Saudis (and OPEC?) to only sell oil for dollars. That created an enormous global demand to hold dollars.

I've wondering this myself - specifically, why did Switzerland move away from the gold-backed Swiss Franc.

A little research reveals this (from Wikipedia):

The Swiss franc has historically been considered a safe-haven currency, with a legal requirement that a minimum of 40% be backed by gold reserves.[17] However, this link to gold, which dated from the 1920s, was terminated on 1 May 2000 following a referendum, making the franc fiat money.[18][19] By March 2005, following a gold-selling program, the Swiss National Bank held 1,290 tonnes of gold in reserves, which equated to 20% of its assets.[20]

...but this can't be the whole story. Anyone got more?

Because they cannot print gold or silver...

Imagine you REALLY like sausages, no, you LOVE sausages. You love sausages so much that you spend every spare bit of money you have on sausages, and only sausages. You take on debt to buy sausages, you work 3 jobs, to buy sausages. You love sausages.

Then, you look over at your neighbour, and they ALWAYS have sausages. There are just sausages everywhere, whenever you look over the fence, sausages spilling out of the windows, all over the back garden, it's a sausage fest.

You think, "Why can't I have so many sausages? I love sausages." You ask your neighbour how come they always have so many sausages, and they tell you that there's this weird hole in the basement that just spits out millions upon millions of sausages.

I've forgotten how this relates to your question, other than to say - how fucking nice are sausages?

Excellent question and well written. Excellent answers 👌

Read Broken Money

As a gold country, you can't compete with fiat countries. I feel there's serious difficulties when you can't print but another can. Your currency and economy gets too expensive for outsiders/people that import from you, so you become an isolated and very expensive country. People start buying your currency purely as an investment/savings tech (like Bitcoin). There's serious risks of getting outcompeted on everything you produce. This is probably why the Swiss abandoned the gold standard, to not lose their competitive edge completely.

Similarly, in a war, a country on a gold standard will most likely lose against a country on a fiat standard that can tax people more easily through printing and inflation. The gold standard country can only raise taxes, which is much more difficult to get done.

It's probably a race to the bottom in a globalized and competitive world. Who can screw his citizens the most and become the cheapest producer?

This probably means that a full Bitcoin standard is a challenging concept for a country/economy in a globalized world. But there's probably some nuances to that, so hope more people can chime in.

Because much of the world was recovering from near total destruction and America, protected by it's two oceans and near slave labor force expressed its power.

Probably because the countries that have gone Fiat already have an incentive to make the others join.

If the almighty US Government decides to go Fiat, it doesn't want some other little country to stay in the gold standard. Because their currency provides an easy way for US citizens to escape debasement, and makes it obvious that debasement is happening.

And so, you get something like Bretton Woods.

Because very few governments care for their country or people. They are corrupted by the money masters lobby. These are important questions to understand money and how its used to enslave people nowadays. Slavery did not end, they just put most of us under a fiat paycheck. Wicked

And World Economic Forum was founded by Klauss Schwab in 1971

Countries like china if they start redeeming their Dollar Reserves for Gold now, US doesnt have enough gold reserves to pay back.

The total mined gold is somewhere around 2,08,000 tonnes max amounting max to 15 trillion dollar around maximum

And federal reserve does not own any gold, US Treasury does. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/does-the-federal-reserve-own-or-hold-gold.htm

As of 2019, the vault housed approximately 497,000 gold bars, with a combined weight of about 6,190 tons. ( 0.44 Trillion )

Total Gold reserves of all countries combined is around 32414 tonne ( 2.3 trillion )

This above link gives an estimated 90.4 trillion total broad money supply

So it is 90.4 trillion paper money against 2.3 trillion of Gold reserves

So effectively i think the value of gold is at least 39 times than it is today

Read more in my article at https://bit.ly/dollarhyperinflation

This is nothing new - Had done many times in history previously.

The Currency Act 1764 (4 Geo. 3. c. 34) extended the 1751 Act to all of the British colonies of North America. Unlike the earlier Act, this statute did not prohibit the colonies from issuing paper money, but it did forbid them from designating future currency issues as legal tender for public and private debts. This tight money policy created financial difficulties in the colonies, where gold and silver were in short supply

Read more in my article https://bit.ly/dollarhyperinflation