The death of the U.S. dollar has been greatly exaggerated.
The death of the U.S. dollar has been greatly exaggerated, especially as of late. While COVID-19 and recording breaking spending from Washington D.C. has only empowered countless rumors of the U.S. dollar's impending doom, it is clear the U.S. dollar is still very much the world's de facto reserve currency.
In July, data from SWIFT, the global transfer network, reported “transactions involving the dollar at 46%,” an all-time high. By comparison, just over 3 percent were settled in China’s Yuan.
America’s economy is incredibly diversified. Internationally we have petrodollars, which are dollars paid to oil exporters for oil imports. This is unlikely to change and enhances the U.S. dollar's liquidity, not to mention, solidifies the narrative of the U.S. dollar as the unchallenged global reserve currency.
Naysayers can attack all they want, but the OPEC member countries of Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela need petrodollars. The United States is the largest consumer of oil in the world, and these OPEC countries count on oil exports to the United States as their main source of revenue.
You hear lots of rumbling about changes in Saudi Arabia, but with nearly 15 percent of the world's oil reserves, and more than 85 percent of revenues from oil sales, at the present moment, Saudi Arabia can only dream of independence from the United States, and the U.S. dollar.
