The dollars had it coming…

The dollar is losing liquidity, rubles are becoming more advantageous for keeping in everyday life

Let us all together commemorate the dollar, gentlemen. The fact is it has already ceased to be the world’s currency, the only, unique and unwavering one. Even Belarusians, who have developed an instinct to rush to the exchange office for no reason for 30 years of globalisation, slowly started to hand over the dollar. So, what is its value? The magic is gone, only pragmatism remains, and it tells us: new values are coming to finance. Besides, the President recently drew attention to the fact that there is no longer a need for citizens to ‘run around the back streets’ in order to exchange rubles for dollars. 
Recently, Russia and Belarus agreed on a transition in pricing and settlements in national currencies. Russian banks announced the opportunity of making deposits in rupees, drachmas, yuan, Belarusian rubles and other currencies. And the other day, Saudi Arabia began negotiations with China on the sale of part of the oil to Beijing for yuan. It should be noted that the rise of the dollar began with the ‘occupation’ of the oil sector. 

Money goes to money

Admittedly, at a certain point the US managed to monopolise the financial system. In fact, 

Washington has turned the planet into one huge ‘village’ (sorry for such comparison), in which there is only one bank — American. That way, all payments went through it.

Therefore, the dollar dominated the world, and for a later time everyone had to put up with it. Well, in fairness, it should be noted: a single global system was temporarily convenient. Settlements in international trade were unified, standardised, everything worked according to the same rules, regardless of whether your counterparty is located in Argentina, Germany or Honduras.
Another issue, as antimonopoly inspectors say, is that the United States has begun to abuse its dominant position more and more actively. Not to provide services, but to impose them, and in recent years also to push around customers, telling them what they need to release, for whom and with whom to be friends, and with whom not. As they say, they had it coming. Clients began to turn away from the ‘centre of the universe’.

The same old story

Today, American activists and publicists accuse Joe Biden of killing the dollar. In fact, several of his predecessors did it systematically with some maniac sequence.

The current head of the White House has only the dubious honour of nailing down the coffin of the American financial system. And without global dominance, the American currency is not particularly needed. 
The problem arose not yesterday, but the day before yesterday. It’s hard to pinpoint a turning point. Perhaps these were sanctions against Iran, when they froze all its international assets and disconnected it from the financial system. Perhaps… 

Over the past two decades, there have been many events of misbehaviour by the American financial authorities (to put it mildly), which have undermined the credibility of the ‘US bank’. Over the past decade, parallel systems of international settlements began to form in the key economic centres such as the EU, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Russia. There are already dozens of them. 

The economic war with Russia (however, the United States is still trying to draw China into it) has become the trigger for the ‘Plan B’ activation in international trade. By the way, when there was a clap of thunder, it turned out that the United States had only satellites and vassals, but not allies (and not even partners) in the financial and economic circle. They turned out to be not very reliable. Including transnational corporations from the real sector as well as those with American roots. 

Most recently, Moscow catering and Russian furniture sellers were happy that McDonald’s and IKEA were leaving their market. But it turned out that they didn’t seem to leave... They just took a break... Toyota at first scorned towards the Russian market, but a few days passed — and it had already changed its mind about disappearing from our roads...

The situation is changing every day, but there are already real opportunities for international transactions outside the dollar system. And if it is possible to jump out of the control of the US Department of the Treasury — why anyone should lose the market. Moreover, in the developed world, the term ‘recession’ is becoming increasingly relevant. The bosses from the IMF are already talking about it, although they said that there would be no crisis a week ago. However, international institutions have long been engaged in either analytics, or propaganda, or verbiage (sorry for such harshness) — It is a real mess. 

On the way toward conversion

Is it possible to manage international trade without the USA? For sure. Of course, not everything is so simple, it is necessary to expand a number of bottlenecks in payment and international regional payment systems. 

But there are no insurmountable walls. By the way, the share of settlements in Russian rubles and yuan in mutual trade between Moscow and Beijing was growing even before the Ukrainian crisis. Now the dynamics will be even faster.

Moreover, there is a strong feeling that Europe will also join the ruble-yuan pair. Eurasia is the largest trade partner of the EU. Yes, there is now a cooling down going on for political reasons rooted in Washington. There is also a certain pressure through the US financial system on European companies, politicians, and countries. 

Nonetheless, Europe still needs oil, gas, other raw materials and Chinese intermediate goods. Otherwise, the economy will collapse. And who said that the same oil cannot be sold for Russian rubles or our potash for Belarusian rubles for our Western counterparts? The sanctions factor connected with the use of the euro and the dollar passes away.

Where does our money come from in the West? It’s not a problem. We must not be blind to the fact that Belarus and Russia also require a number of European goods. So bring, offer, sell it to us... Get our money, for which you can buy raw materials. Yes, there are some nuances with exchange rate formation, certain technical issues. But all they are solvable. By and large, dozens of national currencies circulated in Europe in the last century, but trade continued. Another question is that we will not only have to ‘monkey around’ in order to interest Western companies that are used to this approach with proposals. They will also have to try to make us an offer one could decline. 

The era of the dollar is coming to an end

No one will be left without cars, household appliances and other consumer, intermediate and technological goods. They will just buy everything the same, but produced in other countries: China, India, Vietnam... Business entities will almost irreversibly conclude contracts with partners from these countries in yuan, rupees, and dongs amid rapid deglobalisation and restrictions on the American financial system.
Admittedly, the unipolar financial system has already disappeared. In foreign trade, there is a rapid transformation, a transition to settlements in national currencies. Yes, everything is getting more complicated, and the world economic system will be even more interesting and multifaceted in the near future. 

There is no need to run around the back streets for dollar… It’s just ridiculous. Finita la commedia — the dollar system cracks and collapses. And in a few months we will see a completely different financial system. In this kaleidoscope, national currencies will be the most reliable means of savings. 

At least for household (as they say today — non-professional) investors. In the end, ordinary people have previously mainly purchased goods of domestic production. Today the focus on the domestic market will be even higher. In other words, the era of dollars has almost come to an end. At least in most third countries. 


By Vladimir Volchkov
Open source photos