There is a growing movement for de-dollarization among nations divorcing themselves from using the United States dollar as the reserve currency for international commerce. Some analysts and observers say the rejection is a sign that the global stronghold of the American government is falling to pieces. She is losing her prestige among the nations of the Earth and is experiencing an active decline.
For a long time, the United States has been cautioned about the devaluation of the dollar as a marker of her fall from power as past empires that rose to great eminence, then collapsed. Among the voices of warning in the present and last century are the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. Both spoke of the unraveling of America and its manifest loss of global influence and power.
“One of the greatest powers of America was her dollar. The loss of such power will bring any nation to weakness, for this is the media of exchange between nations,” said the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in His illuminating book, “The Fall of America,” published in 1973.
“The English pound and the American dollar have been the power and beckoning light of these two great powers. But when the world went off the gold and silver standard, the financial doom of England and America was sealed,” he explained.
›The Honorable Elijah Muhammad further wrote, the fall of America and by extension White world power has been looming over time. He warned America’s fall serves as a sign of fate for her European counterparts.
“Long has Allah (God) been gradually removing the power of the great and mighty America while few have noticed it. This has been done by degrees, and they do not perceive it.”
In a yearlong lecture series in 2013 called “The Time and What Must Be Done,” Part 34, Minister Farrakhan said America is being snared in traps she has laid for others.
“Even though you plan well, there is another Planner over and above your plans—that is The Best of Planners,” said Minister Farrakhan. “And your plans, under His Plan, is causing you to fulfill the scripture that says: ‘you will lay a trap and get caught in it, and you will dig a ditch for others, but you will fall in it yourself,’” he reasoned.
The dollar has been the world’s go-to currency since World War II in an arrangement that also placed America in a position to weaponize it against geopolitical foes. The global debate around de-dollarization is not new, however, with a changing world, talks have morphed into organized action.
“It’s a matter of self-defense … of self-preservation,” said Dr. Wilmer Leon, political analyst and radio talk show host. “It’s a matter of U.S. actions, which have left these countries no choice,” he added.
Dr. Leon was referring to resistance to America’s regular imposition of sanction regimes on nations she cannot control or deems as enemies to her foreign policy objectives.
Economic sanctions are how America forced nations to submit to its will. Geopolitical experts say sanctions are “coercive measures” and a weapon of “economic warfare” against foes like China, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and now Russia.
Dr. Leon pointed out that except for China, these tactics have crippled economies and wreaked havoc on societies.
When America decided to place pressure on oil-rich Venezuela, it froze Venezuelan assets held in Western banks and enforced a maximum pressure campaign of sanctions meant to foment internal dissatisfaction, and ultimately regime change.
Over its conflict in Ukraine, America imposed massive economic sanctions on Russia, seized assets and pressured Russia’s dismissal from the S.W.I.F.T. (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications), an international system that allows member banks to transfer money across borders safely and efficiently.
American-led sanctions also stymied Russian oil, grain, and liquefied natural gas exports to the world market. America holds the power to penalize third-party countries that desire to trade with sanctioned countries. All made possible because global trade is conducted in U.S. dollars. Nations are pushing to change the equation.
China and Russia are at the forefront of pushing for de-dollarization. In press remarks on April 3, Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, stressed the need to “de-dollarize” the world economy after Western sanctions on Russia raised concerns about the reliability of the dollar-based payment system. Russia had to find ways to implement a new system of exchanges with friendly countries. “We’ve been speaking that we need to ‘de-dollarize’ the world economy… and we want to involve local currencies … more within trade with Russia,” he said.
China and Brazil inked a deal on March 29, to trade in their own currencies, scrapping the U.S. dollar as an intermediary, as part of the rising global use of the Chinese renminbi.
“The expectation is that this will reduce costs … promote even greater bilateral trade and facilitate investment,” the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency said in a statement.
Others like India and Malaysia recently began using the Indian Rupee to settle certain trades, and there have been warnings that Saudi Arabia and other energy exporters will also backpedal from the dollar.
Analysts say U.S. weaponization of the dollar is a major factor for accelerating de-dollarization efforts—already in motion by some nations aiming to shield themselves by diversifying investments and currencies.
New blocs are forming while existing ones like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa) are recalibrating to unyoke themselves from America’s inordinate financial sway.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim proposed the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund, which would be independent from the U.S.-led International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“There is no reason for a country like Malaysia to continue to depend on the United States dollar in attracting investment into the country,” Mr. Ibrahim told the Malaysian parliament on April 4.
“Investment negotiations between Malaysia and other countries should use the currency of this country and the currency of the country involved,” he said. The fund was first suggested by Japan during the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s but never materialized. In late March, finance ministers and central bank governors of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) discussed reducing the U.S. dollar, euro, yen, and British pound from financial transactions to pay settlements in local currencies.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo advocated using credit cards issued by local banks and gradually abandoning foreign payment systems. He argued that Indonesia needed to shield itself from geopolitical disruptions, citing the U.S. and EU sanctions targeting Russia.
Stepping away from Western payment systems is essential to guard transactions from “possible geopolitical repercussions,” Mr. Widodo said.
If de-dollarization proves successful it will render America’s taste for sanctions null. Republican Senator Mark Rubio (R-Fla.) lamented that sanctions would become worthless within five years as more countries realign with China to utilize currencies other than the dollar.
On the China-Brazil agreement, Mr. Rubio told Fox News, “They’re going to … trade in their own currencies to get right around the dollar.” He said so many countries transacting in other currencies, “we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”
Global South nations unifying around currencies and effectively sidelining the dollar is likened to the biblical “David versus Goliath” take-down. It’s a bold step.
Student Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad said past leaders who seriously moved to make the shift were either overthrown and/or killed.
“Saddam Hussein started selling Iraqi oil in euros. Look what happened to him. Hugo Chavez talked about replacing the dollar with the euro … look what happened to him and Venezuela. Look what happened to Muammar Gadhafi,” he said.
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed in 2011 for advancing a vision of a United States of Africa and a single currency backed by gold. The move would have freed Africa and Global South nations enslaved to the U.S. dollar and her counterparts in Europe like the euro, the British pound, and French franc.
Observers told The Final Call then, implementing that vision would have changed the global power equation and threatened Western hegemony. In response, America and NATO determined “Gadhafi must go,” and assumed the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
The flurry toward de-dollarization is driven by a deep-seated fear that America may one day do to them what it imposed on Russia.
The currency shift is happening while America is drowning in over $31.6 trillion in debt to creditors, both domestic and foreign. The realignments indicate a falling empire posturing a glorious future by flexing her military prowess.
The de-dollarization or decline of dollar hegemony will put the United States in a slow crash and make everyday Americans poorer, noted Michael Hudson, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, in an article published July 2022 on www.telesurenglish.net.
Other countries must de-dollarize because of American foreign policy, which forces them to create an alternative, the article noted.
Minister Farrakhan has noted that we know we are at the end of this system of things. When America goes down, she takes the world down with her. The economy of the whole world is tied to the economy of America. “So as ‘the dollar’ weakens, as the dollar falls, as the dollar collapses: Where will the fiat money of Europe and the world go?” said Minister Farrakhan.
As de-dollarization is intensifying as a geopolitical question; it’s understood that like “politics,” all “geopolitics” is local. Some market-watchers believe the world would be better off without “king dollar” but not necessarily U.S. consumers. If the dollar were to eventually lose its reserve status, its exchange rate could fall, U.S. interest rates could suffer, likely hurt the value of the dollar, and create an inflationary pressure on the prices of consumer goods. Ultimately, losing reserve-currency status will make U.S. consumers much poorer.
For Black people and the poor, any devaluation of the dollar at home or abroad is bad as the adage says: when America catches a cold, Black folks catch pneumonia.
“Black people in America: Our condition worsens as America’s condition worsens,” said Minister Farrakhan in Part 3 of “The Time and What Must Be Done.”
The Minister warned that the financial turbulence is tied to the active judgment of God against America and the responsibility is on Black people to unite and do something for themselves.
“America: No matter what you have done in the world of evil, what has brought The Judgment of God on America, and on you, is what you have done—and continue to do, and plan yet to do—with The People of God.
“God has chosen us to be His people, as it is written in the scriptures, and He would be our God. And God is exceedingly angry now with you, America, because you have rejected the Knowledge of The Time, and He is displeased with Black people who have been hearing this Knowledge and refuse to come away from The Oppressor and unite and do something for self. So both, now, are in the position to suffer more and more loss,” said Minister Farrakhan.
