There is much trumpet about Saudi Arabia's rumoured non-renewal in June of a supposed US-Saudi 50-year contract whereby Saudi Arabia, by far the world's largest oil producer, had agreed to settle all its oil sales in U.S. dollars. The presumed demise of the so-called "petrodollar era" has proven to be fake news.
Admittedly, with the greenback's long-arm weaponisation, more countries are trying to hedge against over-dependence on the dollar, including alternative payment systems and payment in other currencies, especially for bilateral trade. Also, America's "exorbitant privilege" of limitless money printing continues to push US debt payment to dangerous levels. However, the end days of the dollar are still very far off.
The dollar's pre-eminence remains deeply-embedded in global trade, investments, as a reserve currency and as a hedge against global instabilities. No other alternate systems, including sovereign-backed digital currencies, are sufficiently developed to pose a credible threat to the mighty greenback.
Why the Dominance of America’s Currency Is Harder Than Ever to Overturn is expounded in a timley piece Top Dolalr of June 18 in Foreign Affairs by Eswar Prasad, Senior Professor of Trade Policy in the Dyson School at Cornell University, and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
It's evident that report of the dollar's early demise is much over-exaggerated, to paraphrase Mark Twain.
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