It’s not oil that is America’s Achilles Heel, it’s the U.S. Dollar. It’s the global reserve currency and was given that status by trading the world’s lifeblood of economies: oil. Take away the Dollar in trading of oil and you can take down the entire house of cards, in this case the U.S. The last couple of times this move was made, Ghadafi and Saddam Hussein were killed.
People politicized and speculated it was over oil, but missed the mark. America has all the oil it could ever need in its own backyard but not always the support it needs to sustain its lifestyle via waning Dollar hegemony when nations are banding together.
(ANTIMEDIA) Following President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, the Iranian government announced it would stop using the U.S. dollar “as its currency of choice in its financial and foreign exchange reports,” the local Financial Tribune reported.
Iran governor Valiollah Seif’s central bank announced the decision in a television interview on January 29. The change will take effect on March 21, and it will impact all official financial and foreign exchange reports.
“Iran’s difficulties [in dealing] with the dollar,” Seif said, “were in place from the time of the primary sanctions and this trend is continuing,” but when it comes to other currencies, he added, “we face no limitations.”
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Despite the country’s decision to halt the use of the U.S. dollar as its base currency for exchange with other nations, Iran’s top export is oil. In the global markets, oil is mainly purchased and sold in U.S. dollars. This fiscal year, Iran is expected to earn $41 billion from oil sales, with countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China as their top clients. It’s still uncertain how the country will manage to switch currencies without relying on the American currency. The shift, Dudley notes, “will add a degree of currency risk and volatility and is likely to complicate matters for the authorities.”
This matters because predominantly Muslim countries left out of the “Muslim ban” include Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top oil exporters.
In the 1970s, the Arab nation struck a deal with U.S. President Richard Nixon establishing an alliance that would maintain the dollar as the standard oil exchange currency in exchange for military support from America. The use of the dollar as a standard currency for oil exchange was accepted by Saudi Arabia and the remaining block of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which include Iran and 11 other Middle Eastern, African, and South American countries.
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Iran’s decision to exit this deal might impact the U.S. economy and threaten the dollar, prompting the U.S. government to take stern measures to combat Iran’s actions. After all, Iran holds 13 percent of OPEC’s oil reserves.
Full article: Iran Just Officially Ditched the Dollar in Major Blow to US: Here’s Why It Matters (Anti Media)
Global Geopolitics 