Could China Kill the Dollar? Max Keiser and Alasdair Macleod Talk About a Post-Dollar World (Video)

Countries like Russia, China and Iran have been looking for ways to limit their dependence on the US dollar for years. More recently, we’ve even seen American allies looking to de-dollarize the world. Last month, German foreign minister Heiko Maas called for the creation of a new payments system independent of the United States.

It’s gotten to the point people are beginning to discuss a “post-dollar” world.

RT’s Max Keiser recently talked about the issue of the US weaponizing its currency with the head of research for GoldMoney.com, Alasdair Macleod.

What do we mean by “weaponizing” the dollar?” It refers to the greenback as a source of leverage over other countries. Keiser mentioned Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar used to talk about “plata o plomo,” meaning “silver or lead.” In other words, you give us your silver or you’ll take a bullet. Keiser said that seems to be America’s attitude about the dollar. Either take our greenbacks or suffer the consequences.

The US holds this kind of leverage with the help of the SWIFT system. SWIFT  is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The system enables financial institutions to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized environment. Since the dollar is the world reserve currency, SWIFT facilitates the international dollar system.

SWIFT gives the US a great deal of leverage over other countries. The US has used the system as a stick to keep other countries “in line” before. In 2014 and 2015, it blocked several Russian banks from SWIFT as relations between the two countries deteriorated. Last fall, the US threatened to lock China out of the dollar system if it didn’t follow UN sanctions on North Korea.

It’s no wonder a lot of countries would like to find an alternative to SWIFT and the global dollar system. But as Macleod said, nobody knows what would replace that dollar system.

Basically, the Americans have used this to their advantage. They know there is no alternative to the dollar. Therefore, you go with us of we kill you basically has been the message. The problem is, you can do this to an extent against small nations, and they’ve done this recently, particularly against Iran … So you can see that this is giving a message to every other nation which relies on the dollar for its cross-border trade – that this is actually something not very safe to do. You need to have an alternative.”

Macleod said he thinks China expects the East to move toward the yuan, but it needs to back their currency with more than the full faith and credit of the Chinese government. He said he thinks this is why China has been accumulating gold. The Peoples Bank of China claims about 1,800 tons of gold, but Macleod said, “She’s got a lot more gold than that.”

He said Beijing has been diversifying from the US dollar since 1983 and could have accumulated more than 20,000 tons of gold.

Now, we don’t know whether this is true. But what we can surmise is that China has a lot more gold than she actually admits in her reserves. Now, that being the case, she can begin to back her own currency with gold. Whether she’ll do this or not, I don’t know. Part of her problem is that if he went on to that policy, she would kill the dollar.”

Of course, killing the dollar would have major ramifications around the world. As Macleod, it would be very negative, not just for America, but for everybody. As a result, China will step very cautiously.

But I do see that over a period of time, we’re likely to evolve more towards Chinese yuan, which will be made to look synthetically more stable than the current situation. And that I feel very strongly is likely to happen. And I think if you want some confirmation of this, China’s main partner, Russia, is already down that route.”

Macleod said Germany is also moving out of the American sphere of influence.

This entire Keiser Report episode looks into the post-US dollar world as more and more countries are opting to use their national currencies as they fall victim to relentless US tariffs and sanctions. The interview with Macleod starts at the 13-minute mark.

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