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How Washington Plans to Defend the Dollar (Financial Times, Gillian Tett)www.ft.com/content/bfafb8f7-bd1c-48bb-85f4-8ba25475c0a3
597 sats \ 4 comments \ @denlillaapan 5h 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”.
...
non-paywalled here: https://archive.md/bM73a
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29 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 4h
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 \ 1 reply \ @sudonaka 42m
Maybe you should be US president instead
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 40m
A tiny fringe minority would be very happy with that.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 2h
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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