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How Washington Plans to Defend the Dollar (Financial Times, Gillian Tett)www.ft.com/content/bfafb8f7-bd1c-48bb-85f4-8ba25475c0a3
737 sats \ 7 comments \ @denlillaapan 23 Feb econ
"defend it from what?!" was my first reaction to this headline
Love also that the caption picture the FT picked was... melting ice cream cones!

U trying to tell us something about fiat currencies, eh?!

OK, so what's this about?
not least because Trump is undeniably on the monetary warpath: on Truth Social last month he repeated threats to impose “100% Tariffs” on countries trying to “replace the mighty U.S. Dollar” with new currencies or payments systems.
...ugh, it's the Trumpman again. Still, Tett has a point:
After all (as I have noted before), it is the dollar-based global financial system that is the real source of America’s hegemonic power today, and which Washington wants to defend.
  • dollars still 58% of CB reserves, trending down, but might take forever to get anywhere...
  • 49.1% of all payments in dollars (according to Swift).
Two problems: CBs are hovering up gold (#889502, #885194) like crazy... and the Swift data doesn't have the non-Western payment platform transactions included (so the "true" global payment share of the dollar is markedly lower).
Weaponization of the dollar... or an inevitable bitcoin angle and/or stablecoin Treasury financing?
Trump seems minded to use sticks. Last month he issued an executive order banning any central bank digital currency usage in America, since they “threaten the stability of the financial system, individual privacy, and the sovereignty of the United States”. Instead, he championed bitcoin (never mind that this is viewed as a fiat dollar hedge). More significantly, he also backed the “growth of lawful and legitimate dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide”.
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non-paywalled here: https://archive.md/bM73a
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28 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheMorningStar 24 Feb
First, he’s waves goodbye to cbdcs, and then he is trying to create a shitcoinery! All to defend US dollars. For how long?
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29 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Feb
The thing about using threats and bullying is that it only works until it doesn't. And then you're in a real pickle.
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37 sats \ 2 replies \ @sudonaka 23 Feb
Maybe you should be US president instead
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28 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 24 Feb
Undisc for prez!!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Feb
A tiny fringe minority would be very happy with that.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 18 May
'"defend it from what?!" was my first reaction to this headline'
You don't appear to have read the article...
It is about mBridge the Chinese led alternative to USD/SWIFT trade payments.
'Four years ago, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) — the central bankers’ central bank — unveiled an innovation project that carried the ugly moniker “mBridge”.
This aimed to create a cross-border central bank digital currency linking the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, UAE and (latterly) Saudi Arabia.
You might think this is arcane. If so, think again: the geeky project symbolises a bigger battle that could matter deeply under US President Donald Trump.
More specifically, last autumn, just before the US election, the BIS unexpectedly pulled out of mBridge, in effect ceding control to China and the rest. BIS claimed this was just because it had reached “minimal viable product” stage. But few believe this. “The Americans demanded [the BIS] stop because it’s a threat,” one participant tells me, explaining that Washington worried that “it might be used to evade [dollar] sanctions”.
And while Agustín Carstens, BIS head, publicly denied that, speculation bubbles on — not least because Trump is undeniably on the monetary warpath: on Truth Social last month he repeated threats to impose “100% Tariffs” on countries trying to “replace the mighty U.S. Dollar” with new currencies or payments systems.
So investors should watch what happens next. For while it is Trump’s threats around trade tariffs that have been grabbing headlines recently, this less-visible fight around money matters deeply. After all (as I have noted before), it is the dollar-based global financial system that is the real source of America’s hegemonic power today, and which Washington wants to defend.'
Get it yet?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 23 Feb
Russia can only wage war upon Ukraine because China buys their oil and gas and paying for it and enabling other trade via Chinas alternative trade payments network based in Hong Kong.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-and-china-unveil-a-pact-against-america-and-the-west
China has won the trade war- it produces the majority of manufactured goods more efficiently than any other nation and it pays the best price for commodity inputs.
China having won the trade war must logically project its power into the tertiary layers of global power and trade payments is the most significant of these. China is now building its alternative trade payments network with N.Korea, Iran, Russia already fully absorbed and increasingly with BRICS nations moving in the same direction. If only a few more leave SWIFT and embrace the Chinese alternative the collapse of USD power and wealth could be very swift.
Trump is the boy holding his finger in the dyke of crumbling western imperialism.
Nations must trade with China or lose significant advantage- Chinas Development Bank already finances far more global infrastructure projects than the World Bank. SWIFT/IMF do not have the data on Chinas alternative trade payments protocol.
The hundreds years of humiliation were engineered by the British Navies cannons and the British imperialists Hong Kong banks - now China is reverse engineering that western financial hegemony, via Hong Kong, and its already operational CBDC Yuan.
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