De-Dollarization Kicks into High Gear- Pepe Escobar 4/27/23

Source: TheCradle.co

It is now established that the US dollar’s status as a global reserve currency is eroding. When corporate western media begins to attack the multipolar world’s de-dollarization narrative in earnest, you know the panic in Washington has fully set in.

The numbers: the dollar share of global reserves was 73 percent in 2001, 55 percent in 2021, and 47 percent in 2022. The key takeaway is that last year, the dollar share slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades.

Now it is no longer far-fetched to project a global dollar share of only 30 percent by the end of 2024, coinciding with the next US presidential election.

The defining moment – the actual trigger leading to the Fall of the Hegemon – was in February 2022, when over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves were “frozen” by the collective west, and every other country on the planet began fearing for their own dollar stores abroad. There was some comic relief in this absurd move, though: the EU “can’t find” most of it.

Now cue to some current essential developments on the trading front.

Over 70 percent of trade deals between Russia and China now use either the ruble or the yuan, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

Russia and India are trading oil in rupees. Less than four weeks ago, Banco Bocom BBM became the first Latin American bank to sign up as a direct participant of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which is the Chinese alternative to the western-led financial messaging system, SWIFT.

China’s CNOOC and France’s Total signed their first LNG trade in yuan via the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange.

The deal between Russia and Bangladesh for the construction of the Rooppur nuclear plant will also bypass the US dollar. The first $300 million payment will be in yuan, but Russia will try to switch the next ones to rubles.

Russia and Bolivia’s bilateral trade now accepts settlements in Boliviano. That’s extremely pertinent, considering Rosatom’s drive to be a crucial part of the development of lithium deposits in Bolivia.

Notably, many of those trades involve BRICS countries – and beyond. At least 19 nations have already requested to join BRICS+, the extended version of the 21st century’s major multipolar institution, whose founding members are Brazil, Russia, India, and China, then South Africa. The foreign ministers of the original five will start discussing the modalities of accession for new members in an upcoming June summit in Capetown.

BRICS, as it stands, is already more relevant to the global economy than the G7. The latest IMF figures reveal that the existing five BRICS nations will contribute 32.1 percent to global growth, compared to the G7’s 29.9 percent.

With Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, and Mexico as possible new members, it is clear that key Global South players are starting to focus on the quintessential multilateral institution capable of smashing Western hegemony….

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