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Iran and Saudi Arabia: a Chinese win-win — Pepe Escobar

Summary:
The turning point came on 26 February, 2022, when Washington’s neocons – in a glaring display of their shallow intellects – decided to freeze and/or steal the reserves of the only nation on the planet equipped with all the commodities that really matter, and with the necessary nous to unleash a momentous shift to a monetary system not anchored in fiat money.That was the fateful day when the cabal, identified by journalist Seymour Hersh as responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, actually blew the whistle for the high-speed de-dollarization train to leave the station, led by Russia, China, and now – welcome on board – Iran and Saudi Arabia.…One meaning of de-dollarization is ending the dominance of the USD, the USD as the global reserve currency, and crashing the USD. Many

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The turning point came on 26 February, 2022, when Washington’s neocons – in a glaring display of their shallow intellects – decided to freeze and/or steal the reserves of the only nation on the planet equipped with all the commodities that really matter, and with the necessary nous to unleash a momentous shift to a monetary system not anchored in fiat money.

That was the fateful day when the cabal, identified by journalist Seymour Hersh as responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, actually blew the whistle for the high-speed de-dollarization train to leave the station, led by Russia, China, and now – welcome on board – Iran and Saudi Arabia.…

One meaning of de-dollarization is ending the dominance of the USD, the USD as the global reserve currency, and crashing the USD. Many assume that this is the primary meaning but it is not. One might think it is from the amount of talk about on the Internet, but this is not the view of realists, in particular, those directly involved as victims or potential victims of dollar dominance and the choice to weaponize it. They are looking to escape from the hegemon's trap.

For the parties involved in settling trade without using the dollar system, de-dollarization means establishing payment systems that avoid the use of the USD system and therefore the ability of the US to weaponize its currency to force its will on other sovereigns. How this affects the USD is not a major concern of theirs. If it weakens the US, well and good as far as they are concerned, but this is not the objective.

This escape process is now launched, initially with bilateral trade in the currencies of the trading partners. However, this is considered an ad hoc workaround adopted out of necessity. A more permanent system is needed.

Alternatives such as digital currency, and a commodity-based system are under consideration. In addition, discussion is underway about developing a new monetary system suitable for the emerging new multipolar world order.

The people involved in this discussion at the professional level are well aware of previous commodity-based systems, both their pros and cons. No one is considering a return to the gold standard of old. Rather, there is interest in creating a settlement vehicle that is partly constituted of commodities and partly of financial instruments, such as a basket of currencies and commodities. John Maynard Keynes's bancor proposal at Bretton Woods, which lost to the dollar system that was adopted, serves as a precedent, for example, as does the SDR system of the IMF.

At this point the only thing that is certain is that the game has changed drastically with Global South/East actively on board. 

Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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