Follow us on social

google cta
Dollar

Dedollarization is here, like it or not

A major driver is Washington’s weaponization of its currency via sanctions, covering 29 percent of the global economy. (Video)

Analysis | Africa
google cta
google cta

Dedollarization appears to be an unstoppable trend as countries around the world look to reduce their dependence on U.S. currency.

Countries, particularly those in the Global South, are reducing their U.S. dollar reserves, settling cross border transactions in non-dollar currencies, and exploring the formation of new multilateral settlement mechanisms.

A major driver of this trend is Washington’s weaponization of the dollar via expansive sanctions that currently cover 29 percent of the global economy and 40 percent of global oil reserves.

Two recent Responsible Statecraft articles, one authored by International Crisis Group co-chair Frank Giustra and another by Quincy Institute Non-Resident Fellow Amir Handjani, began the process of explaining the drivers of this economic trend, as well as the geopolitical pitfalls facing the U.S. as much of the world reduces its dependence on the dollar, especially if the U.S. fails to engage other countries in the process of forming a multilateral monetary system.

In this video, Giustra and Handjani make the case for the U.S. acknowledging the trend of dedollarization and for Washington to address the national security dangers, as well as global economic and political instability, associated with this unmanaged decline of U.S. economic hegemony.


Shutterstock
google cta
Analysis | Africa
Us-army-soldiers
Top photo credit: U.S. Army Soldiers, from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team depart for Afghanistan from Italy on Feb. 25, 2005. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Bethann Caporaletti)

Could the US win a war with a near-peer adversary today?

Military Industrial Complex

“One should never assert a power that he cannot exert,” said British statesman and wordsmith Winston Churchill. My hometown football coach expressed a similar thought: “The man with an alligator mouth and a hummingbird ass” would get more than his share of whippings.

The U.S. military today has a hummingbird’s ass. Despite decades of sky-high military spending, our force is incapable of defeating a peer or near-peer adversary in today’s complex, dangerous world. If we continue on our alligator-mouth-sized trajectory, the consequences will be catastrophic.

keep readingShow less
G7 Summit
Top photo credit: May 21, 2023, Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan: (From R to L) Comoros' President Azali Assoumani, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. (Credit Image: © POOL via ZUMA Press Wire)

Middle Powers are setting the table so they won't be 'on the menu'

Asia-Pacific

The global order was already fragmenting before Donald Trump returned to the White House. But the upended “rules” of global economic and foreign policies have now reached a point of no return.

What has changed is not direction, but speed. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s remarks in Davos last month — “Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu” — captured the consequences of not acting quickly. And Carney is not alone in those fears.

keep readingShow less
Vice President JD Vance Azerbaijan Armenia
U.S. Vice President JD Vance gets out of a car before boarding Air Force Two upon departure for Azerbaijan, at Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan, Armenia, February 10, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/Pool

VP Vance’s timely TRIPP to the South Caucasus

Washington Politics

Vice President JD Vance’s regional tour to Armenia and Azerbaijan this week — the highest level visit by an American official to the South Caucasus since Vice President Joe Biden went to Georgia in 2009 — demonstrates that Washington is not ignoring Yerevan and Baku and is taking an active role in their normalization process.

Vance’s stop in Armenia included an announcement that Yerevan has procured $11 million in U.S. defense systems — a first — in particular Shield AI’s V-BAT, an ISR unmanned aircraft system. It was also announced that the second stage of a groundbreaking AI supercomputer project led by Firebird, a U.S.-based AI cloud and infrastructure company, would commence after having secured American licensing for the sale and delivery of an additional 41,000 NVIDIA GB300 graphics processing units.

keep readingShow less
google cta
Want more of our stories on Google?
Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.