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BRICSThe collective of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is seeking to expand its ranks at the upcoming BRICS summit. Subsequently, with discussion over a developing currency to combat the US dollar, multi-polarization feels entirely within reach. BREAKING: Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and UAE to join BRICS on January 1st, 2024.  BRICS Summit What is BRICS and its Purpose?25September2023 https://watcher.guru/news/what-is-brics-and-its-purpose-2 What is BRICS and its Purpose? : Comprehensive Guide BRICS, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is a group of major emerging economies that have come together to challenge the dominance of the United States and its Western allies in the global order. The bloc was founded in 2009 as an informal club to provide a platform for its members to assert their influence and promote economic cooperation. This article will explore the history, purpose, and key facts about BRICS, shedding light on its significance in the international arena. Also read: BRICS: The Beginning of the End for the US Dollar? Understanding BRICSBRICS is no formal multilateral organization like the United Nations or the World Bank. Instead, it functions as a forum for dialogue and collaboration among its member nations. The heads of state and government of the member countries convene annually, with each nation taking up a one-year rotating chairmanship of the group. The primary focus of BRICS is strengthening economic cooperation, increasing multilateral trade, and fostering development among its members. Also read: BRICS: UAE Navigating New Alliance & US Relations History of BRICSThe term BRIC was first coined in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, the then chief economist of Goldman Sachs, in a research paper that highlighted the growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. These four countries were identified as emerging economies with significant economic clout and the potential to reshape the global economic landscape. 2009 South Africa joined the group, and the acronym was expanded to BRICS. The Goldman Sachs BRIC ThesisThe concept of BRICS originated from the Goldman Sachs BRIC thesis, which asserted that these emerging economies would become significant global players. The thesis emphasized the rapid economic growth, large populations, and abundant natural resources of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. It predicted that these countries would outperform traditional Western powers regarding GDP growth and investment opportunities. Closure of Goldman’s BRICS FundDespite the initial optimism surrounding the BRIC thesis, Goldman Sachs closed its BRICS fund in 2015 due to the economic challenges some of the member countries face. This move raised questions about the sustainability and long-term viability of the BRICS concept. However, the group continued to exist as a forum for cooperation and collaboration among its member nations. What Countries are in BRICS?The founding members of BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa joined the group in 2010, expanding the acronym to BRICS. Together, these countries account for more than 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of the global economy. Despite its smaller economy and population, South Africa plays a vital role in representing Africa and strengthening the group. What is BRICS and its Purpose?What is the main function of BRICS?BRICS primarily serves as a platform for member nations to collaborate on economic, trade, and development matters. The bloc aims to foster mutually beneficial partnerships and reduce dependence on traditional Western powers. BRICS nations, united, can secure improved trade deals, foster investments, and tackle shared challenges effectively. BRICS Currency and Its PurposeOne of the key discussions within BRICS has been the possibility of establishing a common currency for the bloc. While this idea is still in the early stages of exploration, it holds the potential to enhance economic integration and facilitate trade among the member nations. A common currency could reduce transaction costs, minimize exchange rate volatility, and promote greater financial cooperation within the bloc. What is BRICS Currency Backed By?The concept of a BRICS currency raises questions about its backing and stability. We haven’t determined the specifics of a potential BRICS currency, but it would likely rely on member nations’ economic strength and stability. The backing could include a combination of foreign reserves, gold reserves, and the overall economic performance of the bloc. Also read: BRICS Currency a Driving Factor for Membership Interest Potential Expansion of BRICSBRICS has attracted interest from several countries seeking to join the group. More than 40 nations, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia, aspire to join the bloc. These nations see BRICS as an alternative to Western-dominated global organizations, aiming for benefits like development finance and trade. The Bottom Line: What is BRICS and its Purpose?In conclusion, the BRICS, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is an influential group of major emerging economies aiming to challenge traditional Western powers’ dominance in the global order. While it is not a formal multilateral organization, BRICS serves as a platform for dialogue and cooperation among its members. The bloc primarily focuses on economic cooperation, trade, and development. As the world continues to evolve, BRICS holds the potential to reshape the global economic landscape and foster a more balanced and inclusive international order.
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BRICS Officially Agrees To End Use Of US DollarVinod Dsouza
The BRICS alliance has called for the abandonment of the US dollar for international trade at the summit in Johannesburg. BRICS will officially end reliance on the US dollar for global trade settlements moving forward. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that the bloc collectively decided to abandon the US dollar with no opposition.
BRICS will now continue promoting their respective local currencies for cross-border settlements and strengthening their native economies. The move will pave the way for a paradigm shift in the global economy and reshape the political landscape. Bilateral ties with other countries will be reworked, and the US dollar will face stiff competition in the long run. Also Read: BRICS: Is Chinese Yuan a Growing Threat to the U.S. Dollar?
 Watcher.Guru-tweet-24August2023-BRICS to officially abandon US Dollar for trade settlements
BRICS Steps Away From The US DollarThe BRICS bloc announced that it wants to end dependency on the US dollar to promote their local currencies. The dollar’s debt factor also played a role in abandoning the USD. We will increase “payment options and reduce our vulnerability,” holding the dollar as reserves, said Brazil’s President Lula da Silva. Also Read: BRICS: China Targets U.S., Says America Is Obsessed With Hegemony BRICS will also convince other developing countries to trade in local currencies and not the US dollar. The greenback will slowly fade away from the international stage, making the debt ceiling crisis in America worsen. Read here to learn about the 10 financial sectors that will be impacted if the US dollar is no longer used for global trade.
 Watcher.Guru-tweet-24August2023-Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and UAE to join BRICS Also Read: BRICS Developing Effective Mechanisms for Global Financial Control In addition, six new countries will join BRICS, further strengthening the alliance. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran will be members of the bloc. Five of the six countries are oil-producing nations and could change the way the world trades in the coming years.
In conclusion, the US dollar is in a ‘do or die‘ situation after the BRICS called to stop trading in the USD. The dollar could be on the path of decline if the ideas of the BRICS play out as planned.
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BRICS Drive US Dollar Global Reserves to Record Lows in 2024Joshua Ramos
In what is a clear signifier of the BRICS de-dollarization success, US dollar global reserves have plummeted to record lows in 2024. Indeed, data shows that the share of reserves held in the greenback has fallen. Moreover, the economic alliance has continued to seek an international shift away from the currency.
The bloc has embraced increasing trade agreements that ditch the dollar. Specifically, Russia has orchestrated dealings with Iran, India, and North Korea that seek to challenge Western dominance in the trade sector. Those efforts are clearly having an effect, based on the recent metrics.
Also Read: BRICS Calls Its Payment System a Global Bombshell as it Nears Arrival
US Dollar Reserves Plummet Following BRICS De-DollarizationThe BRICS bloc has firmly embraced de-dollarization over the last several years. With Russia combating sanctions since 2022, the promotion of local currencies has been driven by necessity. Now, it appears as though those efforts are starting to have an effect.
BRICS initiatives have driven the US dollar global reserve to hit record lows in 2024. Indeed, the Atlantic Council’s Dollar Dominance Monitor notes a stark decline. Specifically, the share of international reserves held in the greenback has dropped to 59% this year. Conversely, that number was as high as 72% in 2002.
The economic collective’s currency initiative has been the driving force behind expansion interest. With countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Nigeria, and Venezuela clamoring to join, Western hegemony appears to be the most important factor in that interest.
Also Read: BRICS Makes Major Announcement on Alliance Expansion
A researcher at the Lowy Institute, Rahman Yaacob, said as much in an interview with Fortune. “For some countries, BRICS can be a counterweight against US economic hegemony,” he noted. Therefore, it provides a way to hedge against emerging concerns regarding the US economy.
In August, recession concerns drove a mass stock market crash. The US market lost $2 trillion, with Japan’s stock market suffering its single greatest daily loss in history. Those fears are in concert with worries over the ballooning US debt, now reaching $35 trillion. Several countries appear weary of putting increased faith in the West. That appears to be encouraged by BRICS, and driving strategies away from the dollar.
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BRICS Nations Buy Massive Amounts of Gold to Back the New Currency10July2023 https://watcher.guru/news/brics-nations-buy-gold-to-back-new-currency he BRICS alliance plans to launch a new currency backed by gold, reported RT News a month ahead of the summit. Russia has reportedly briefed the bloc on the importance of pegging the soon-to-be-released currency to gold. The move could make it easier to take on the U.S. dollar and challenge its global reserve status. The next BRICS summit will be held in South Africa in August and the formation of a new currency will be laid out. Also Read: BRICS: India Saves $7 Billion by Ditching U.S. Dollar For Oil Trade BRICS to Back The New Currency With GoldThe yet-to-be-launched BRICS currency could be backed by gold and the bloc of five nations are stockpiling the precious metal. In the last 18 months, the BRICS nations have increased their gold buying expenditure to end reliance on the U.S. dollar. Also Read: 6 New Countries To Join BRICS Alliance in August Summit The World Gold Council published a report saying that China purchased 102 tonnes of gold. Russia has purchased 31.1 tonnes of precious metal in the last six months. In addition, India added 2.8 tonnes to its gold reserves in 2023, for the first time in more than a year. India accumulated gold for several months and could add more by the end of the year.
The move puts the U.S. dollar in jeopardy as gold could be used as collateral and not the USD. The BRICS alliance could rely more on gold and completely end reliance on the U.S. dollar. If many more countries join the bloc, the new BRICS currency could be the preferred choice for cross-border transactions. Also Read: BRICS: 130 Countries Move Towards CBDC Currency, US Dollar in Jeopardy Gold is considered a safe investment and has a slim chance of collapsing than the U.S. dollar. The greenback is now a risky asset as it comes with the dangers of debt. If the debt ceiling crisis worsens, it could cause a domino effect of financial problems in developing countries. Therefore, a handful of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, are looking to stay away from the U.S. dollar for global settlements.
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BRICS Could Potentially Become Global CurrencyVinod Dsouza The BRICS alliance will launch a new currency in the next summit in August 2023 held in Cape Town, South Africa. The five blocs of nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will combinedly decide the formation of the currency. The yet-to-be-released tender will be pushed into the global stage to settle cross-border transactions among like-minded nations. The goal is to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and usher in a new era in the financial sector.
Even before its launch, around 41 countries have expressed interest to join BRICS and accept the currency. While 19 countries have formally sent applications to join BRICS, the others have informally expressed desires to enter the bloc. South African BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that the alliance could soon expand becoming BRICS+. Also Read: Europe Might Get Ready To Accept BRICS Currency BRICS Currency Could Go Global, Dethrone the U.S. DollarLeading economist Alexis Habiyaremye from the University of Johannesburg said that the BRICS currency could dethrone the U.S. dollar. The economist said that the U.S. dollar added a burden to the economies of developing countries through debt accumulation. The U.S. pressing sanctions aggravated the situation making their local economies come to a standstill. Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance Things could get better with the launch of the currency as the U.S. will have no control over their economies. If the BRICS currency gains widespread acceptance, the U.S. dollar will lose supply and demand on the global stage. The development could make the new tender acceptable and countries could sideline the USD in the coming years.
“In terms of economic weight, The BRICS currency has a real prospect of becoming a global currency if members commit to increasing trade exchange between themselves,” he said. The economist added, “Introducing a new currency if it were to be used effectively and systematically for all trade transactions between BRICS countries, would alleviate the burden on these countries to finance the exorbitant privilege.”
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How BRICS Eliminated US Influence in the Global SouthJoshua Ramos
The past few months have seen the economic bloc continue to grow and establish a new global power balance. Subsequently, through a myriad of factors, it is undeniable that BRICS has all but eliminated US influence in the global south. A development that has opened the door to the undeniable growth of the alliance.
Yet, the elimination of American influence was not solely a victory for the BRICS collective. Alternatively, it was the development of decades worth of resentment toward the ideals of the United States. More importantly, it was the culmination of the status quo that has long affected the region negatively. The BRICS MovementIn recent statements, South African Ambassador Anil Sooklal discussed the state of the BRICS bloc. Specifically, addressing opposition to the collective. Interestingly, he stated, “BRICS is not a group of countries that is in opposition to any particular grouping.”
Additionally, Sooklal told Newsweek about the group’s desire. Noting the bloc’s hope “of reforming the global governance architecture, to make it more inclusive, more equitable, and more just and fair, which many of us continue to feel that it’s not.”
That sentiment is what has driven the expected growth of the BRICS bloc over the last several months. Indeed, it is what has driven more than 20 countries to submit their membership requests to join the bloc ahead of its annual summit. Subsequently, the opposite of ideology is how BRICS has all but eliminated the US influence on the global south.
“We see an erosion of the global multilateral architecture,” Sooklal added. “Unilateral measures, unilateral sanctions becoming the norm of the day, an uneven global architecture, and countries wanting to have a greater say in terms of how the new evolving global order pans out.”
Conclusively, Sooklal noted these factors as attracting “countries from the global south who increasingly want to identify with the BRICS group.” Additionally, noting, “the attractiveness of BRIS is that it articulates the challenges that countries from the Global South continue to face in a very unequal world. A world that vastly changed over the last 80 years since the founding of the U.N. System.”
Alternatively, the Secretary General of the India-China Economic and Cultural Council, Mohammed Aqib, adds another interesting aspect. Specifically, he told Newsweek that it is less about the potential that makes the bloc attractive. Instead, it is an ultimate goal.
“It is the quest for multilateralism stand breaking the hegemony of the West which is driving countries to join BRICS.” The US RoleIndeed, the growth of BRICS and the elimination of US influence on the Global South are byproducts of efforts from countries like Russia, India, and China. However, it is also a byproduct of decades worth of actions taken by the United States.
Amid the battle for international influence, Saqib stated that “the USA is turning BRICS into a geopolitical tool to contain China, coercing, coaxing, and threatening countries to somehow fail BRICS.” Subsequently, this perspective has driven the growth of the BRICS. As many have observed its potential, they have first observed what its potential means for Western dominance.
That kind of perspective only grew with the Western sanctions placed on Russia. Specifically, this set out to once again weaponize the global finance sector. It saw the United States and its allies tell countries who they could do business with, by limiting access to the currency they controlled.
Thus, the quest for greater de-dollarization took hold. Saqib noted, “De-dollarization will save countries from currency terrorism or sanctions and also offer fair terms of trade and influence of the West.”
Interestingly, these actions are an effort to create a multipolar order. Moreover, they have created an opportunity for nations that have long felt under the heel of the West, to stand shoulder to shoulder. This quest for an equal playing field is led by the actions of Russia and China, driven by the US itself.
The upcoming BRICS summit will surely allow discussion of potential expansion and an alternative currency. It will feature more than 20 nations discussing their potential entry. And it will be another indication that the BRICS countries have driven US influence from the global south entirely. Yet, the US certainly has a part to play in that.
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BRICS New Development Bank Now Offers Loans in Local Currencies Instead of US DollarVignesh Karunanidhi
The US dollar has been losing its role in global trade. When the pound sterling lost its value during WWI and WWII, the US dollar was established as a global reserve currency. However, global nations are slowly steering away from US dollar reliance.
Now The New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS group has begun to offer loans in local currencies. This is according to the latest report from Natural News,
 Watcher.Guru-tweet-23April2023-BRICS New Development Bank now offers loans in local currencies
BRICS group motive to ditch the use of US dollarThe move to offer loans in local currencies is to steer away from the US dollar’s dependency. The plan to offer the loan was reportedly confirmed by NDB President Dilma Rousseff. She also stated that the bank aims to provide 30% of the loans in the local currencies of member nations.
Rousseff recently stated this in an April 14 interview with CGTN regarding the move. “It is necessary to find ways to avoid foreign exchange risk and other issues such as being dependent on a single currency, such as the U.S. dollar.” Also read: BRICS: Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Discuss OPEC+ Deal She also stressed during the interview that providing 30% of the loans in the local currencies of BRICS member countries will also help the countries avoid exchange rate risks and finance shortages.
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BRICS: Ministers Say Global Order is Rebalancing from Western DominanceJoshua Ramos
BRICS foreign ministers are meeting in Cape Town over the next two days, where they have stated the global order is rebalancing away from Western dominance. Moreover, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, discussed the collective vision for “global leadership,” amidst a fractured world.
Ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa were in attendance. Subsequently, they spoke about the turning tide of the global power balance. Stating that the BRICS nations need to assure the multipolar order of the current world. BRICS Nations Speak of Rebalanced Global OrderThe BRICS nations have undoubtedly grown in prominence thus far in 2023. Indeed, nations have sought to join the collective that has proven to be a growing alternative to the G7 countries. With a combined population of over 3.2 billion, and making up 40% of people on the planet, BRICS have proven to be attractive to developing countries.
Nevertheless, in the meeting taking place today, the BBC reported the BRICS foreign ministers’ sentiments that the global order is rebalancing away from Western dominance. Specifically, Indian Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed the necessity for the collective to “send out a strong message that the world is multipolar, that it is rebalancing, and that old ways cannot address new situations.”
“At the heart of the problems we face is economic concentration that leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few,” he added. Additionally, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Viera shared their vision of the bloc. Specifically, describing it as an “indispensable mechanism for building a multipolar world order that reflects the devices and needs of developing countries.”
As the BRICS summit is set to arrive in a few months, the potential expansion of the bloc will be a vital talking point. Moreover, more than 20 nations have already reportedly submitted membership applications to join the bloc. The bloc continues to maintain its focus on challenging Western dominance. Subsequently, countries tired of the political stranglehold of the West are flocking.
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BRICS Alliance Promoting Native Currency Before Launching New TenderVinod Dsouza
BRICS countries are promoting their native currency before launching a new tender in August 2023. The next BRICS summit will be held in South Africa and the BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will launch a new currency to settle international trade. The nations aim to remove the U.S. dollar from its global reserve status and overthrow the existing financial order.
China is making use of the timeline by asking other developing nations to settle trade using the Chinese Yuan. In Q1 2023, the Chinese Yuan was the most traded currency in Russia overtaking the U.S. dollar. In addition, France settled an LNG gas trade with China by paying in the Chinese Yuan, ending the reliance on the dollar.
Also Read: 5 Arab Nations Ready To Join BRICS Alliance
On the other hand, India has asked developing countries to settle trade in the Rupee instead of the U.S. dollar. India reached out to countries that don’t have the U.S. dollar in reserve to pay for international trade, reported Bloomberg. The Reserve Bank of India allows 18 countries to pay with the Rupee instead of the dollar. Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Singapore are among the list of nations that India wants to trade with using its native currency Rupee.
Also Read: BRICS Countries Buying Large Amounts of Gold To Topple the U.S. Dollar BRICS Alliance Promotes Native CurrencySouth Africa’s BRICS ambassador, Anil Sooklal said that the block of nations must prioritize native currencies over the U.S. dollar. The development is the stepping stone to replace the dollar before they launch a new currency in August this year. In conclusion, the BRICS alliance of nations has already begun using their native currency for trade than the dollar.
Also Read: Will Canada & Mexico Join BRICS To Eliminate U.S. Dollar’s Dominance? “National currencies should be increasingly used by the BRICS states not only in trade but also in investments and other transactions. Only this way can the foundation for the single BRICS currency be created,” he said to Tass News.
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10 ASEAN Countries To Accept BRICS CurrencyVinod Dsouza  ASEAN bloc of countries leaders Source: Reuters The ASEAN bloc of countries is looking to deepen ties with BRICS and accept the new currency for cross-border transactions. ASEAN nations recently agreed to ditch the U.S. dollar for global trade and are currently settling payments with native currencies. The leaders of the 10 Southwest Asian nations agreed to sideline the U.S. dollar and promote local currencies instead. Therefore, the dollar usage for international trade is reduced giving native currencies a boost in the global markets.
Also Read: Europe Might Get Ready To Accept BRICS Currency The 10 ASEAN countries recently signed a declaration to stop using the U.S. dollar similar to the BRICS alliance. The countries in the ASEAN bloc include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
While ASEAN has no plans to launch a new currency, they are dependent on BRICS to release a new tender. When the soon-to-be-released currency makes its way on the global stage, the ASEAN bloc could be the first to accept it. The bloc is moving to maintain ties with BRICS and begin to usher in a new era in the global financial markets.
Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance ASEAN Alliance Could be the First to Accept BRICS CurrencyThe official declaration signed by ASEAN leaders states that the U.S. dollar will be reduced to secondary status for global trade. The goal is to strengthen bilateral and multilateral payment activities among each other for imports and exports. The proximity of borders helps ASEAN to settle trade faster and more smoothly.
Apart from ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is also aiming to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and accept BRICS. Read here to know more details on why GCC wants to challenge Western financial dominance.
Also Read: BRICS: 16 Asian Countries Move to Ditch the U.S. Dollar “We adopted the ASEAN Leaders Declaration on advancing regional payment connectivity and promoting local currency transaction to foster bilateral and multilateral payment connectivity arrangements to strengthen economic integration by enabling fast, seamless, and more affordable cross-border payments across the region,” the declaration read.
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24 Countries Ready To Accept BRICS CurrencyVinod Dsouza
A total of 24 countries are interested in accepting and trading with BRICS currency when it launches on the International stage. The group of developing countries is moving to bypass the U.S. dollar to settle global trade. The dollar’s dominance could weaken if the BRICS currency gains prominence, giving Eastern nations more financial power than the United States.
South Africa’s BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal said that 19 countries have shown their interest to join the alliance, reported Bloomberg. Sooklal confirmed that 13 countries have formally sent applications to join the BRICS alliance. He added that five other countries have informally requested to be a part of the block.
Also Read: BRICS Alliance Promoting Native Currency Before Launching New Tender BRICS comprises five countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Therefore, a total of 24 countries are participating to dethrone the U.S. dollar from its global reserve status. 24 Countries Interested In BRICS CurrencyThe countries that have shown interest to join the BRICS alliance are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, Bahrain, Indonesia, Algeria, and Iran. Also, two unnamed countries from East Africa and one from West Africa have sent their applications, according to the ambassador.
The development shows that a handful of countries are interested to trade in the BRICS currency. The nations want to move away from the U.S. dollar and end American financial supremacy. The dollar comes with a risk of debt that could wreak havoc on local currencies if the U.S. slips into a recession.
Also Read: BRICS Countries Buying Large Amounts of Gold To Topple the U.S. Dollar If more countries ditch the dollar, the U.S. will have no means to fund its deficit, making the dollar weak. This could make the soon-to-be-released BRICS currency gain prominence in the new financial world order.
If nations around the world settle for trade with the BRICS currency, the dollar’s value could plummet. Therefore, the fate of the U.S. dollar will be decided in the next BRICS summit.
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Europe Might Get Ready To Accept BRICS Currency4June2023 https://watcher.guru/news/europe-ready-to-accept-brics-currency-u-s-dollar
A whirlwind of changes is taking place in the global financial markets threatening the superiority of the U.S. dollar. A handful of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe are looking to end reliance on the dollar and promote BRICS or their native currencies. Iraq banned the U.S. dollar in May, posing a hefty fine and jail term for anyone trading with the USD.
The Iraqi government banned entities from initiating business transactions with the U.S. dollar. Iraq aims to control the fluctuating black market exchange rate, that plagues the country for decades. The move is also positioned to strengthen the usage of the Iraqi Dinar in the Forex markets.
Offenders who trade in the U.S. dollar will face a penalty of up to 1 million Iraqi Dinar. Repeat offenders will also face a jail term of one year and have their business licenses overturned. Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance After Iraq Bans U.S. Dollar, Europe Could Accept BRICS CurrencyThe South African BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that European countries have expressed interest to join the BRICS alliance. Sooklal did not reveal the names of the European nations but hinted that a global financial change is brewing. According to recent developments, all arrows point towards France and Belarus showing interest to join BRICS. Also Read: BRICS: What Happens if Mexico Joins the Alliance? France settled an LNG gas trade with China by settling the cross-border transaction with the Chinese Yuan in March. French President Emmanuel Macron also called for the European Union to distance itself from the U.S. dollar.
 Watcher.Guru-tweet-29March2023-China and France complete first LNG gas trade using Chinese Yuan
In addition, Macron repeatedly hit out against the dollar calling it a “great risk” to continue trading with it. The dollar comes with the risk of debt that could spell trouble to nations holding it as reserves.
Also, the Eastern European country Belarus is interested to join BRICS and trade with the new currency. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko suggested ideas to create a new economic union with zero restrictions with BRICS. If a barrier-less trade among BRICS countries takes shape, the U.S. dollar could be dethroned from the global reserve currency.
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Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance01June2023 https://watcher.guru/news/saudi-arabia-challenge-us-dollar-funding-brics-alliance
The oil-rich Saudi Arabia formally sent its application to join the BRICS alliance, reported Bloomberg. The South African BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that five Middle Eastern countries have shown their interest to join the bloc. The five countries are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, and Algeria. The nations export millions of oil barrels to the West every year settling transactions in the U.S. dollar.
Talks are in progress with Saudi Arabia looking to fund the BRICS bank, commonly called The New Development Bank (NDB). If the BRICS alliance accepts Saudi’s funding, it could usher in a new era of financial dominance with constant cash flow from the oil-rich nation. Saudi Arabia funding of the BRICS bank poses a challenge to the U.S. dollar’s supremacy as the global reserve currency.
Also Read: BRICS: China Does Not Want the Chinese Yuan To Replace U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency BRICS: Saudi Arabia Challenges U.S. Dollar’s Global Currency StatusThe BRICS bank President Dilma Rousseff said on Tuesday that the alliance is keen on receiving funds from Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the decision to allow Saudi cash flow for NDB will be jointly taken by the bloc of nations at the next summit in South Africa in August.
Also Read: What Happens to the U.S. Dollar if BRICS Launch New Currency?
“As a former president of a developing country, I know how important multilateral banks are. And how much of a challenge it is to obtain finance or to raise funds on the scale needed to address social and economic challenges in our countries,” said Rousseff.
Rousseff stated that the BRICS bank aims to fund projects in local currencies thereon and not the U.S. dollar. The development could end reliance on the U.S. dollar and strengthen the BRICS currency on a global scale. Nonetheless, the dollar’s dominance is being chipped piece-by-piece as we know it and could make way for a new financial order.
Also Read: After BRICS, 10 ASEAN Countries Ditch The U.S. Dollar
BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Nearly 25 countries have shown their interest to join the alliance. BRICS could soon turn to BRICS+ if more countries are allowed to enter the bloc and become financially more powerful.
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BRICS: Saudi Arabia & India’s New Energy Deal a ‘Game Changer’Joshua Ramos
 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Crown Prince Of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud Source: Nikkei Asia The two BRICS countries, Saudi Arabia and India, have signed a new energy deal that has certainly been labeled a “game changer.” Moreover, the two nations have already agreed to expand economic ties. The decision arrived after Saudi Arabia was invited to join the bloc at last month’s 2023 economic summit.
The economic alliance saw six countries join its ranks in its first expansion effort since its inception. Saudi Arabia joined the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Argentina as part of key expansion efforts. Subsuenqlety’s deals with India show the fruit of that decision. Also Read: BRICS Influence in Oil Sector Grows, Puts US Dollar in Danger Saudi Arabia and India Sign New Energy Agreement Labeled a “Game Changer.”The growth in economic ties between Saudi Arabia and India has been a notable development. Specifically, the two BRICS nations have seen their economic integration lead to agreements that could have massive implications. That trend has continued once again today.
Indeed, the BRICS nations of Saudi Arabia and India have signed a new energy agreement that has been labeled a “game changer.” Moreover, the deal will see the former aid India in its energy transition. The country’s Power and Energy Minister, R.K. Singh, noted that it could be of immense importance in the near term. Also Read: Economist Predicts Tradig Ending to US Dollar Specifically, both countries have signed a memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation. The deal has placed its emphasis on energy efficiency as well as renewable energy and green hydrogen. Subsequently, it has directed both nations toward energy efficiency, with a grid interconnected between the two nations.
“The advantage will be that renewable energy will be available around the clock because they are in different time zones, so the sun always shines in different time zones,” Singh told Arab News. “It is a game changer. The cost of electricity will come down for the entire region, for the entire Middle East, for our subcontinent, and also for Southeast Asia.”
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BRICS: What Happens if Mexico Joins the Alliance?01June2023 https://watcher.guru/news/brics-what-happens-if-mexico-joins-the-alliance
Mexico is among the 19 countries that have expressed interest to join BRICS but has not formally sent its application, reported Bloomberg. If Mexico officially applies to join the BRICS alliance, the move could cause a paradigm shift in cross-border transactions.
The move could impact its relations with other countries, including its neighboring counties the United States and Canada. The U.S. dollar’s global status could be challenged and put to the test if Mexico accepts the upcoming BRICS currency.
Also Read: BRICS: China Does Not Want the Chinese Yuan To Replace U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency What Happens If Mexico Joins the BRICS Alliance & Accepts the New Currency?Mexico’s alignment with BRICS could alter the geopolitical dynamics in the North and Latin American region. It may result in the reconfiguration of alliances and partnerships, potentially impacting Mexico’s relationships with other countries, particularly those outside BRICS. The move could also lead to closer ties with BRICS members and reshape global power dynamics.
Also Read: What Happens to the U.S. Dollar if BRICS Launch New Currency?
In addition, Mexico accepting BRICS currency for international trade could pave the way for Latin American countries to cut ties with the U.S. dollar. The BRICS currency could capture the Latin American markets making other nations end reliance on the U.S. dollar.
Mexico’s participation might be an important gateway for the BRICS currency to access and trade in the Latin American markets. The move might extend to areas such as diplomacy, security, and cultural exchanges, fostering closer relationships among the participating nations.
However, Mexico has not joined the BRICS alliance currently and is partnered with the United States and Canada through NAFTA. A decision to be a part of the bloc through BRICS+ is yet to be decided by the government.
BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The next summit will be held in South Africa in August, where members will decide on the formation of a new currency.
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BRICS: Here’s a Full List of Countries That Wants To Join the AllianceVinod Dsouza
BRICS was created on June 16, 2019, and it compromises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The alliance is taking on the U.S. dollar with plans to launch a new currency to settle payments for international trades. The move is attracting other Eastern countries into the bloc as they want to end reliance on the dollar and promote native currencies.
In addition, developing nations from Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia are ready to join the BRICS alliance. In this article, we will highlight how many countries have shown their interest in joining the BRICS bloc.
Also Read: Middle East Countries Look To Join BRICS Alliance Full List of Countries That Have Shown Interest in Joining BRICSDiscussing the expansion of BRICS to BRICS+ is currently underway and could be decided in the next summit on August 2023. The countries that have shown interest in joining BRICS are: Algeria Among all the nations, Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have formally applied to join the BRICS alliance. The other nations have only expressed their interest in joining the BRICS bloc.
Also Read: 24 Countries Ready To Accept BRICS Currency The next BRICS summit will be held in Cape Town, South Africa in August 2023. The five-nations bloc will combinedly decide on the launch of a new currency to settle global trade. The development has placed the U.S. dollar on the back foot as the world will rely less on the greenback. The move could add further pressure on the dollar sending it on a path of decline.
However, the Federal Reserve plans to challenge BRICS by launching a new FedNow payment service. FedNow will be an instant money transfer platform and banks and leading financial institutions will adopt the new financial technology. Read here to know how FedNow plans to take on the yet-to-be-released BRICS currency and stunt its growth.
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G7 Vs BRICS – Off To The Racesby Tyler Durden, 25March2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/g7-vs-brics-races Authored by Scott Ritter via ConsortiumNews.com, An economist digging below the surface of an IMF report has found something that should shock the Western bloc out of any false confidence in its unsurpassed global economic clout…  G7 leaders meeting on June 28, 2022, at Schloss Elmau in Krün, Germany. (White House/Adam Schultz) Last summer, the Group of 7 (G7), a self-anointed forum of nations that view themselves as the most influential economies in the world, gathered at Schloss Elmau, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to hold their annual meeting. Their focus was punishing Russia through additional sanctions, further arming of Ukraine and the containment of China.
At the same time, China hosted, through video conference, a gathering of the BRICS economic forum. Comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, this collection of nations relegated to the status of so-called developing economies focused on strengthening economic bonds, international economic development and how to address what they collectively deemed the counter-productive policies of the G7.
In early 2020, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had predicted that, based upon purchasing power parity, or PPP, calculations projected by the International Monetary Fund, BRICS would overtake the G7 sometime later that year in terms of percentage of the global total.
(A nation’s gross domestic product at purchasing power parity, or PPP, exchange rates is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States and is a more accurate reflection of comparative economic strength than simple GDP calculations.)
Then the pandemic hit and the global economic reset that followed made the IMF projections moot. The world became singularly focused on recovering from the pandemic and, later, managing the fallout from the West’s massive sanctioning of Russia following that nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The G7 failed to heed the economic challenge from BRICS, and instead focused on solidifying its defense of the “rules based international order” that had become the mantra of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden. MiscalculationSince the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an ideological divide that has gripped the world, with one side (led by the G7) condemning the invasion and seeking to punish Russia economically, and the other (led by BRICS) taking a more nuanced stance by neither supporting the Russian action nor joining in on the sanctions. This has created a intellectual vacuum when it comes to assessing the true state of play in global economic affairs.  U.S. President Joe Biden in virtual call with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Feb. 24. (White House/Adam Schultz) It is now widely accepted that the U.S. and its G7 partners miscalculated both the impact sanctions would have on the Russian economy, as well as the blowback that would hit the West. Angus King, the Independent senator from Maine, recently observed that he remembers
It should be noted that the IMF calculated that the Russian economy, as a result of these sanctions, would contract by at least 8 percent. The real number was 2 percent and the Russian economy — despite sanctions — is expected to grow in 2023 and beyond.
This kind of miscalculation has permeated Western thinking about the global economy and the respective roles played by the G7 and BRICS. In October 2022, the IMF published its annual World Economic Outlook (WEO), with a focus on traditional GDP calculations. Mainstream economic analysts, accordingly, were comforted that — despite the political challenge put forward by BRICS in the summer of 2022 — the IMF was calculating that the G7 still held strong as the leading global economic bloc.
In January 2023 the IMF published an update to the October 2022 WEO, reinforcing the strong position of the G7. According to Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, the “balance of risks to the outlook remains tilted to the downside but is less skewed toward adverse outcomes than in the October WEO.”
This positive hint prevented mainstream Western economic analysts from digging deeper into the data contained in the update. I can personally attest to the reluctance of conservative editors trying to draw current relevance from “old data.”
Fortunately, there are other economic analysts, such as Richard Dias of Acorn Macro Consulting, a self-described “boutique macroeconomic research firm employing a top-down approach to the analysis of the global economy and financial markets.”
Rather than accept the IMF’s rosy outlook as gospel, Dias did what analysts are supposed to do — dig through the data and extract relevant conclusions.
After rooting through the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Data Base, Dias conducted a comparative analysis of the percentage of global GDP adjusted for PPP between the G7 and BRICS, and made a surprising discovery: BRICS had surpassed the G7.
This was not a projection, but rather a statement of accomplished fact:
Making matters worse for the G7, the trends projected showed that the gap between the two economic blocs would only widen going forward.  G7 vs BRICS – GDP as a share of Global Total 1995 -2025 The reasons for this accelerated accumulation of global economic clout on the part of BRICS can be linked to three primary factors:
Growth DisparitiesIt is true that BRICS and G7 economic clout is heavily influenced by the economies of China and the U.S., respectively. But one cannot discount the relative economic trajectories of the other member states of these economic forums. While the economic outlook for most of the BRICS countries points to strong growth in the coming years, the G7 nations, in a large part because of the self-inflicted wound that is the current sanctioning of Russia, are seeing slow growth or, in the case of the U.K., negative growth, with little prospect of reversing this trend.
Moreover, while G7 membership remains static, BRICS is growing, with Argentina and Iran having submitted applications, and other major regional economic powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, expressing an interest in joining. Making this potential expansion even more explosive is the recent Chinese diplomatic achievement in normalizing relations between Iran and Saudia Arabia.
Diminishing prospects for the continued global domination by the U.S. dollar, combined with the economic potential of the trans-Eurasian economic union being promoted by Russia and China, put the G7 and BRICS on opposing trajectories. BRICS should overtake the G7 in terms of actual GDP, and not just PPP, in the coming years. But don’t hold your breath waiting for mainstream economic analysts to reach this conclusion. Thankfully, there are outliers such as Richard Dias and Acorn Macro Consulting who seek to find new meaning from old data. |
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Watch: G7 Vs BRICS By GDP (1992-2028)by Tyler Durden, 31July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/watch-g7-vs-brics-gdp-1992-2028
Fifty years ago, the government finance heads from the UK, West Germany, France, and the U.S. met informally in the White House’s ground-floor library to discuss the international monetary situation at the time. This is the origin story of the G7.
This initial group quickly expanded, adding Japan, Italy, and Canada, to solidify a bloc of the biggest non-communist economies at the time. As industrialized countries that were reaping the benefits of the post-war productivity boom, they were economic juggernauts, with G7 economic output historically contributing around 40% of global GDP.
However, as Visual Capiutalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, the more recent emergence of another international group, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), has been carving out its own section of the global economic order. This animation from James Eagle uses data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and charts the percentage contribution of the G7 and BRICS members to the world economy. Specifically it uses GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) using international dollars. Click to Play BRICS Economies Surpass G7 in Global GDP ShareCharting the Rise of BRICS vs. G7The acronym “BRIC”, developed by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in 2001, was used to identify four fast-growing economies in similar stages of development. It wasn’t until 2009 that their leaders met and formalized their relationship, later inviting South Africa to join in 2010.
ℹ️ Russia was at the time also a member of the G7, then the G8. It was invited to join in 1997 but was expelled in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.
While initially banded together for investment opportunities, in the last decade, BRICS has become an economic rival to G7. Several of their initiatives include building an alternate global bank, with dialogue underway for a payment system and new reserve currency. Below is a quick look at both groups’ contribution to the world economy in PPP-adjusted terms.  BRICS vs. G7 Global GDP Share
A major contributing factor to BRICS’ rise is Chinese and Indian economic growth.
After a period of rapid industrialization in the 1980s and 1990s, China’s exports got a significant boost after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. This helped China become the world’s second largest economy by 2010.
India’s economic rise has not been quite as swift as China’s, but by 2022, the country ranked third with a gross domestic product (PPP) of $12 trillion. Together the two countries make up nearly one-fourth of the PPP-adjusted $164 trillion world economy.
The consequence of using the PPP metric—which better reflects the strengths of local currencies and local prices—is that it has an outsized multiplier effect on the GDPs of developing countries, where the prices of domestic goods and services tend to be cheaper.
Below, we can see both the nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country in 2023. Nominal GDP is measured in USD with market-rate currency conversion, while the adjusted GDP uses international dollars (using the U.S. as a base country for calculations) which better account for cost of living and inflation.  Nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country in 2023
By the IMF’s projections, BRICS countries will constitute more of the world economy in 2023 ($56 trillion) than the G7 ($52 trillion) using PPP-adjusted GDPs. How Will BRICS and G7 Compare in the Future?China and India are in a stage of economic development marked by increasing productivity, wages and consumption, which most countries in the G7 had previously enjoyed in the three decades after World War II.
By 2028, the IMF projects BRICS countries to make up one-third of the global economy (PPP):  Nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country 2028 projected
BRICS vs. the World?The economic rise of BRICS carries geopolitical implications as well. Alongside different political ideals, BRICS’ increasing power gives its member countries financial muscle to back them up. This was put into sharp perspective after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when both China and India abstained from condemning the war at the United Nations and continued to buy Russian oil.
While this is likely concerning for G7 countries, the group of developed countries still wields unparalleled influence on the global stage. Nominally the G7 still commands a larger share of the global economy ($46 trillion) than BRICS ($27.7 trillion). And from the coordination of sanctions on Russia to sending military aid to Ukraine, the G7 still wields significant influence financially and politically.
In the next few decades, especially as China and India are earmarked to lead global growth while simultaneously grappling with their own internal demographic issues, the world order is only set to become more complex and nuanced as these international blocs vie for power.
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NATOstan Robots Versus the Heavenly Horses of MultipolarityPepe Escobar29August2023 https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/08/29/natostan-robots-versus-the-heavenly-horses-of-multipolarity/
The entire West is waiting at the room at the station with black curtains – and no trains. Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK. We will all need plenty of time and introspection to analyze the full range of game-changing vectors unleashed by the unveiling of BRICS 11 last week in South Africa.
Yet time waits for no one. The Empire will (italics mine) strike back in full force; in fact its multi-hydra Hybrid War tentacles are already on display.
Here and here I have attempted two rough drafts of History on the birth of BRICS 11. Essentially, what the Russia-China strategic partnership is accomplishing, one (giant) step at a time, is also multi-vectorial: – expanding BRICS into an alliance to fight against U.S. non-diplomacy. – counter-acting the sanctions dementia. – promoting alternatives to SWIFT. – promoting autonomy, self-reliance and instances of sovereignty. – and in the near future, integrating BRICS 11 (and counting) with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to counter imperial military threats, something already alluded to by President Lukashenko, the inventor of the precious neologism “Global Globe”.
In contrast, the indispensable Michael Hudson has constantly shown how the U.S. and EU’s “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”
Thus Prof. Hudson’s contention that the proxy war in Ukraine – not only against Russia but also against Europe – “may be thought of as World War III.”
In several ways, Prof. Hudson details, we are living “an outgrowth of World War II, whose aftermath saw the United States establish international economic and political organization under its own control to operate in its own national self-interest: the International Monetary Fund to impose U.S. financial control and dollarize the world economy; the World Bank to lend governments money to bear the infrastructure costs of creating trade dependency on U.S. food and manufactures; promoting plantation agriculture, U.S./NATO control of oil, mining and natural resources; and United Nations agencies under U.S. control, with veto power in all international organizations that it created or joined.”
Now it’s another ball game entirely when it comes to Global South, or Global Majority, of “Global Globe” real emancipation. Just take Moscow hosting the Russia-Africa summit in late July, then Beijing, with Xi in person, spending a day last week in Johannesburg with dozens of African leaders, all of them part of the new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 (actually 134 nations), presided by a Cuban, President Diaz-Canel.
That’s the Russia-China Double Helix in effect – offering large swathes of the “Global Globe” security and high-tech infrastructure (Russia) and finance, manufactured exports and road and rail infrastructure (China).
In this context, a BRICS currency is not necessary. Prof. Hudson crucially quotes President Putin: what’s needed is a “means of settlement” for Central Banks for their balance of payments, to keep in check imbalances in trade and investment. That has nothing to do with a BRICS gold-backed supra-national currency.
Moreover, there will be no need for a new reserve currency as increasingly more nations will be ditching the U.S. dollar in their settlements.
Putin has referred to a “temporary” accounting unit – as intra-BRICS 11 trade will be inevitably expanding in their national currencies. All that will develop in the context of an increasingly overwhelming alliance of major oil, gas, minerals, agriculture and commodities producers: a real (italics mine) economy capable of supporting a new global order progressively pushing Western dominance into oblivion.
Call it the soft way to euthanize Hegemony. All aboard the “malign China” narrativeNow compare all of the above with that piece of Norwegian wood posing as NATO secretary-general telling the CIA mouthpiece paper in Washington, in a unique moment of frankness, that the Ukraine War “didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014”.
So here we have a designated imperial vassal plainly admitting that the whole thing started with Maidan, the U.S.-engineered coup supervised by cookie distributor Vicky “F**k the E” Nuland. This means that NATO’s claim of a Russia “invasion”, referring to the Special Military Operation (SMO) is absolutely bogus from a legal standpoint.
It’s firmly established that the spin doctors/ paid propagandist “experts” of Atlanticist idiocracy, practicing an unrivalled mix of arrogance/ignorance, believe they can get away with anything when it comes to demonizing Russia. The same applies to their new narrative on “malign China”.
Chinese scholars which I have the honor to interact with are always delighted to point out that imperial pop narratives and predictive programming are absolutely useless when it comes to confronting Zhong Hua (“The Splendid Central Civilization”).
That’s because China, as one of them describes it, is endowed with a “clear-minded, purposeful and relentless aristocratic oligarchy at the helm of the Chinese State”, using tools of power that guarantee, among other issues, public safety and hygiene for all; education focused on learning useful information and skills, not indoctrination; a monetary system under control; physical assets and the industrial capacity to make real stuff; first-class diplomatic, supply chain, techno-scientific, economic, cultural, commercial, geostrategic and financial networks; and first-class physical infrastructure.
And yet, since at least 1990, Western mainstream media is obsessed to dictate that China’s economic collapse, or “hard landing”, is imminent.
Nonsense. As another Chinese scholar frames it, “China’s strategy has been to let sleeping dogs lie and let lying machines lie. Meanwhile, let China surpass them in their sleep and cause the Empire’s demise.” Poisons, viruses, microchipsAnd that bring us full circle back to the New Great Game: NATOstan versus the Multipolar World. No matter the evidence provided by graphic reality, NATOstan in advanced seppuku mode – especially the European sector – actually believes it will win the war against Russia-China.
As for the Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe”, they are regarded as enemies. So their mostly poor populations should be poisoned with famine, experimental injections, new modified viruses, implanted microchips as in BCI (Brain Computer Interface) and soon NATO As Global Robocop “security” outfits.
The coming of BRICS 11 is already unleashing a new imperial wave of deadly poisoning, brand new viruses and cyborgs. The imperial master issued the order to “save” the Japanese seafood industry – a few scraps as quid pro quod for Tokyo acting as a rabid dog in the imperial Chip War against China, and dutifully pledging alliance at the recent Camp David summit side by side with the South Korean vassals.
The EU vassals, in synch, lifted Japan food import rules just as Fukushima nuclear wastewater was to be pumped into the ocean. That’s yet another instance of the EU continuing to dig its own grave – as Japan is set to suffer a Typhoon Number Ten type of blowback.
Radiation spread across the world through the Pacific will breed endless cancer patients around the world and simultaneously destroy the economy of several small island nations relying heavily on tourism.
In parallel, Sergey Glazyev, Minister of Macroeconomics at the Eurasian Economic Commission, part of the EAEU, has been among the very few warning about the new trans-humanist frontier: the Nanotechnology Injection craze ahead – something quite well documented in scientific journals.
Quoting Dr. Steve Hotze, Glazyev in one of his Telegram posts explained what DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been doing, “injecting nanobots in the form of graphene oxide and hydrogel” into the human body, thus creating an interface between nanobots and brain cells. We become “a receptor, receiver and transmitter of signals. The brain will receive signals from the outside, and you can be manipulated remotely.”
Glazyev also refers to the by now frantic promotion of “Eris”, a new Covid variety, named by the WHO after the Greek goddess of discord and enmity, daughter of the goddess of night, Nykta.
Those familiar with Greek mythology will know that Eris was quite angry because she was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Her vengeance was to plant at the feast a golden apple from the gardens of Hesperides with the inscription “Most Beautiful”: that was the legendary “apple of discord”, which generated the Mother of All Catfights between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. And that eventually led to no less than the Trojan War. In the White Room, with black curtainsIt’s oh so predictable, coming from those “elites” running the show, to name a new virus as a harbinger of war. After all, The Next War is badly needed because Project Ukraine turned out to be a massive strategic failure, with the cosmic humiliation of NATO just around the corner.
During the Vietnam War – which the empire lost to a peasant guerrilla army – the daily briefing at the command HQ in Saigon was derided by every journalist with an IQ above room temperature as the “Saigon follies”.
Saigon would never compare with the tsunami of daily follies offered on the proxy war in Ukraine by a tawdry moveable feast at the White House, State Dept., Pentagon, NATO HQ, the Brussels Kafkaesque machine and other Western environs. The difference is that those posing as “journalists” today are cognitively incapable of understanding these are “follies” – and even if they did, they would be prevented from reporting them.
So that’s where the collective West is at the moment: in a White Room, a simulacrum of Plato’s cave depicted in Cream’s 1968 masterpiece, partly inspired by William Blake, invoking pale “silver horses” and exhausted “yellow tigers”.
The entire West is waiting at the room at the station with black curtains – and no trains. They will “sleep in this place with the lonely crowd” and “lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves”.
Outside in the cold, long distance, under the sunlight, away from the moving shadows, across roads made of silk and iron, the Heavenly Horses (Tianma) of the multipolar world gallop gallantly from network to network, from Belt and Road to Eurasia and Afro-Eurasia Bridge, from intuition to integration, from emancipation to sovereignty. |
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Escobar: Putin And The Magic Multipolar Mountainby Tyler Durden, 08October2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-putin-and-magic-multipolar-mountain
There was a whiff of Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’ at the 20th Valdai annual meeting this week at a hotel over the gorgeous heights of the Krasnaya Polyana. north-west of the picturesque resort Sochi.  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chairman of Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs journal Fyodor Lukyanov attend a plenary session as part of the 20th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club titled “Fair Multipolarity: How to Ensure Security and Development for Everyone” in Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia. © Sputnik / Григорий Сысоев
But instead of a deep dive into the lure and degeneracy of ideas in an introverted community in the Swiss Alps on the eve of the First World War, we immersed ourselves in powerful new ideas expressed by a community of Global Majority intellectuals on the possible eve of a psycho neocon-intended WWIII.
And then, of course, President Putin intervened, striking the plenary session like lightning. This is an unofficial Top Ten of his address, before the Q&A which was characteristically engaging:
On The Road to “Asynchronous Multipolarity”The theme of Valdai 2023 was, most appropriately, ‘Fair Multipolarity’. The key axes of discussion were presented in this provocative, detailed report. It’s as if the report had prepared the stage for Putin’s address and his carefully crafted answers to the questions from the plenary.
The concept of multipolarity in the Russian space was first articulated by the late, great Yevgeny Primakov in the mid-Nineties. Now, the road to multipolarity is based on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s concept of “strategic patience”.
In a crisscrossed cornucopia of nation-states, larger blocs, security blocs and ideological historic blocs, we’re now deep into mega-alignments – even as the political West cultivates its universalist ambitions. The Eurasian “non-bloc” is in fact a mega-alignment, as much as the revitalized Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which finds its expression in the G77 (actually formed by 134 nations).
The ideal path to follow might be horizontalism – in a Deleuze-Guattari sense – where we would have 200 equal nation-states. Of course the collective West won’t allow it. Andrey Shushentov, Dean of the School of International Relations at MGIMO University, proposes the notion of “asynchronous multipolarity”. Radhika Desai of Manitoba University proposes “pluripolarity” – borrowing from Hugo Chavez.
The risk, as expressed by Turkish political scientist Ilter Turan, is that by trying to build a replica of the present system via, for instance, BRICS 11, we may be racing towards a parallel system that simply cannot organize itself as the leader of a new order. So, a clearly possible outcome is a bipolar system – considering the impossible convergence of common values.
At the same time, a South-east Asian perspective, expressed by the President of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Pham Lan Dung, points to what is really relevant for middle and small countries: everything should proceed on the basis of South-South friendships. The BRICS Bank: It’s ComplicatedIn one of the key panels on BRICS as a prototype of a new international architecture, the star of the show was Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr, who drew on his vast former experience at the IMF and as Vice-President of the NDB – the BRICS bank – for a realist presentation.
The key problem of the NDB is how to maintain unity while navigating power politics and reaching the upcoming stages of de-dollarization.
Batista outlined how a new international financial architecture may imply a future common currency. He stressed the success of implementing two practical experiments: a BRICS monetary fund (called the Contingent Reserve Agreement, CRA) and a multilateral development bank, the NDB.
Progress though “has been slow”. The monetary fund “has been frozen by the five Central Banks”, and must be expanded. Links with the IMF “must be severed”, but that incurs “fierce resistance” by the five Central Banks of BRICS members (and soon there will be 11).
Turning the NDB around will be a Sisyphean task. Disbursement of loans as well as project implementation have been “slow”. The US dollar “is the unit of account for the bank” – which in itself is counter-productive. The NDB is far from being a global bank: only three countries so far have joined. Current NDB President Dilma Rousseff has only two years to turn it around.
Batista remarked how the common currency idea first came from Russia, and was instantly embraced by Lula when he was Brazil’s President in the 2000s. The R5 concept – the currencies of all current five BRICS members start with a “R” – may endure; but now that will have to expand to R11.
The first substantial step ahead, after revamping the NDB, should be a currency from an issuing bank backed by bonds guaranteed by member countries, freely convertible, with currency swaps denominated in R5.
A healthy prospect is that Russia will appoint the next bank President starting in 2025. So the way forward substantially depends on Russia and Brazil, Batista emphasized. At the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in south-west Russia next year, “a key decision should be made”. And during the Brazilian BRICS presidency in 2025, “the first practical steps should be announced”. Looking For a New UniversalityAlmost all panels at Valdai focused on how to develop an alternative system, but the two main themes were inevitably the lack of democracy in current international institutions and the weaponization of the US dollar. Batista correctly observed how the US itself is the main enemy of the US dollar when using it as a weapon.
At the Q&A, Putin addressed the key issue of economic corridors. He noted how BRI and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) might have different interests: “Not true. They are harmonious and complement each other”. This is reflected in how they are geared to “ensure new logistic routes and industrial chains”, and all that “complemented by the real productive sector”.
Going forward, there’s a pressing need to coin a new terminology for this emerging new “universality” – even as nations continue to behave most often by following national interests.
What’s clear is that the collective West’s “universality” is not valid anymore. A remarkable panel on ‘Russian Civilization Through the Centuries’ showed how the notion of “universality” actually entered Western civilization through St Paul – after his Damascus moment – whereas the Indian notion of equilibrium inbuilt in the Upanishads would be way more appropriate.
Still, we are now in hot debate over the notion of the “civilization-state”, as configured mostly by India and China, Russia and Iran.
Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of the iconic General, expanded on the French notion of universality, embodied in the much-quoted slogan “liberté, egalité, fraternité” – not exactly upheld by Macronism. He made a point to stress he was the “sole representative of France” at Valdai (only a handful of European academics came to Sochi, and no diplomats).
De Gaulle reminded everyone how Saint Simon was a Russophile and how Voltaire corresponded with Catherine the Great. He alluded to the deep Franco-Russian cultural ties; a “shared community of interests”; and “the bond of Christianity”.
In contrast, crucially, “the US never accepted that Russia could develop under a different model”. And now that is illustrated by “how little today’s intellectual elites in the West know about Eurasia.”
De Gaulle emphasized the “tragic mistake is to see Russia through Western eyes”. He invoked Dostoevsky as he lamented the current “destruction of family values” and “existential void” inbuilt in the process of manufacturing consent. He pledged to “fight for independence”, just like his grandfather, under the seal of “faith, family and honor”, and stressed “we must rethink Europe”, inviting “war profiteers to come to Russia”. Top of The Hill: a Cathedral or a Fortress?Beyond Valdai, and especially throughout the crucial year of 2024 – while Russia holds the presidency of BRICS – there will be much further discussion about “poles” of ancient civilizations. A broad coalition of states that support multipolarity actually do not support the “civilization” concept; instead, they support the notion of people sovereignty.
It was up to Dayan Jayatilleka, former Sri Lankan plenipotentiary ambassador to Russia, to come up with a brilliant formulation.
He showed how Vietnam faced a proxy war against the hegemon successfully – “using 5,000 years of Vietnamese civilization”. That was “an internationalist phenomenon”. Ho Chi Minh took his ideas from Lenin – while enjoying full support from students in the US and Europe.
Russia might therefore learn from the Vietnamese experience how to conquer young hearts and minds across the West for its quest towards multipolarity.
It was clear to the overwhelming majority of analysts at Valdai that the concept of Russian civilization is an “existential challenge” to the collective West. Especially because it includes, historically, the radical universality of the Soviet Union. Now is time for Russian thinkers to work hard on refining the internationalist aspect.
Alexander Prokhanov came up with another startling formulation. He compared the Russian dream with a cathedral on the top of a hill, whereas the Anglo-Saxon dream is a fortress on the top of the hill, engaged in constant surveillance. And if you misbehave, you “will receive some Tomahawks”.
The conclusion: “We will always be in conflict with the West”. So what? The future, as I discussed off the record with Grandmaster Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of Valdai, is in the East.
And it was Karaganov who arguably posed the most challenging question to Putin. He stressed how nuclear deterrence does not work anymore. So should we lower the nuclear threshold?”
Putin replied, “I am well aware of your position. Let me remind you the Russian military doctrine has two reasons for the possible use of nuclear weapons. The first is if nuclear weapons are used against us – as retaliation. The response is absolutely unacceptable for any potential aggressor. Because from the moment a missile launch is detected, no matter where it comes from – anywhere in the world’s oceans or from any territory – in a retaliatory strike, so many, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air that no enemy will have a chance of survival, and in several directions at once.”
The second reason is “a threat to the existence of the Russian state even if only conventional weapons are used.”
And then came the clincher – actually a veiled message to the characters whose dream is “victory” via a first strike: “Do we need to change that? Why? I see no point. There’s no situation when something can threaten the existence of the Russian state. No sane person would consider the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.” |
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BRICS On The Marchby Tyler Durden, 30June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/brics-march More and more countries have aspired to belong to BRICS since 2009, but none from the West. The BRICS countries represent 40% of the world population and 25% of the global GDP.
Thanks to BRICS, China can impose its vision of international cooperation and Russia can show that it will not be isolated on the stage of global players.
The group is a thorn in the side of the Americans all the more so that a dozen other developing countries (marked in orange on the map below) want to join the current five countries of the alliance (red).  Proposed BRICS Expansion map Source: Silkroadbriefing
What America certainly doesn’t like is the fact that French President Macron communicated the other day his interest in attending meetings of the alliance. France in BRICS would be a trigger for profound changes in the geopolitical landscape. We bet that Turkey can also join soon, which, like the case of France, will weaken the importance of the UN as a purely Anglo-Saxon project and that of NATO. Indeed, the BRICS countries are against the UN’s attempts to link the issues of climate with the issues of security, and France in BRICS can return to the de Gaullean concepts of foreign policy outside NATO.
A challenge to cohesion in BRICS is the large disparity in countries’ capacities (in favor of China) and the members’ focus on cooperation with the PRC, which results in a smaller number of relationships among the other partners. However, the main factor that has weakened the BRICS in recent years is the deterioration of relations between the largest member states, China and India, since 2017. Border and trade disputes culminated in the clashes on the Ladakh border in June 2020, which almost led to the cancellation of the BRICS summit in the same year and prompted India to deepen cooperation with the United States and the EU.
Now, the West’s involvement in the war in Ukraine is reviving anti-Western sentiments, not only in the BRICS countries.
Indeed, it is clear to more and more countries that the war was provoked by NATO’s excessive expansion.
The BRICS politicians also want to fight inflation whose cause they perceive not in the Russian attack but in the Western sanctions.
Whether you are pro-Western, pro-Russian, or in favor of the New Silk Road, it is better for all of us to live in a multi-polar world rather than to have all the strings pulled on the Potomac. |
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BRICS Will Change The World… Slowlyby Tyler Durden, 25September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/brics-will-change-world-slowly
BRICS, the organization that is hardly noticed in the West, more than doubled its membership at the end of August – something is happening.  BRICS 25th Summit Leaders
IntroductionIt seems to be more a rule than an exception that the most important changes in the history of financial systems either go completely unnoticed or the vast part of the public – including financial experts and investors – does not grasp the importance of such transformations.
There are several examples for this claim: On December 23, 1913 the Senate passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act. The FED being as “federal” as “Federal Express”, a private bank whose shareholder register is not open to the public, rules the world since 1913. The date of December 23 was wisely chosen since the public and most politicians were too engaged in Christmas preparations to realize that this event would change the order of America and then the world forever.
When Richard Nixon, on August 15, 1971, “temporarily” closed the gold window, the Sunday afternoon TV shows got interrupted – among else the TV series “Bonanza” – to inform the American people of his decision. Although, this event was called the Nixon Shock, people did not seem to grasp the importance of this deed.
Lastly, the famously brilliant Henry Kissinger managed to make a deal with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1974, which gave the US unlimited financial and, therefore, geopolitical power by creating the Petrodollar, banishing the danger stemming from a U.S. dollar that was backed by nothing, by backing it with U.S. military might in exchange for nearly unlimited investments in U.S. bonds.
Now, on August 22, BRICS, an organization, which does not gather a lot of attention in the Western media, announced that, apart from the five countries, whose initials gave it its name (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), BRICS welcomed six new members (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) to join BRICS by January 1, 2024; therefore, BRICS becoming BRICS 11.
In this article, let us first quickly look at some facts & figures of BRICS 11. Then, we shall explore the history of the current financial system and it’s becoming in detail in order to appreciate its importance to U.S. power in the period from World War II to the present. Then we shall look at the way the U.S. abused the inherent privileges of this system, which is one reason that led to the current rise of BRICS. Finally, we shall try to answer the question whether the events of August 2023 have the potential to change the world or whether it will be one more fruitless endeavor of emerging market nations to stand-up against the Collective West. Origin of BRICSThe term BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in a 2001 paper where he explained the future economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
In 2006, the BRIC countries met for the first time on the fringes of the UN-General Assembly in New York. A first formal meeting took place in Yekaterinburg in 2009. The aim of this initially loose community was to improve cooperation among its members. In 2010, South Africa joined, which means that this organization has since been called BRICS. This August the number of its members more than doubled and we shall call it now BRICS 11. FiguresWith regard to the most important economic indicators such as population, GDP (PPP), oil, natural gas and gold production, naked figures show that BRICS 11 is much stronger with regard to any of these indicators than G7 (Table 1).  BRICS vs. G7 Global Statistics
These figures on their own should be a wake-up call to all the people, experts, politicians and investors who still seem to believe that it is sufficient to judge the financial world from a pure western perspective.
There are a few points I would like to draw the attention to of the readers regarding the way these naked figures could and should be read and interpreted. However, I am fully aware that I can only give you a glimpse at the reality and this exercise herein is of a very limited nature indeed.
Regarding GDP, I use purchase power adjusted figures. Why? – If you use the U.S. dollar as a tally to measure GDP, ask yourself the simple question: If I want to measure financial punch, does it matter whether, e.g., a Big Mac costs twice as much in U.S. dollar terms in one place than in the other? – In my opinion it does. The Big Mac Index should be reason enough to use PPP-adjusted figures when comparing GDP figures. The reason that Western outlets use the non-adjusted figures is pure marketing masking the debasement of the U.S. dollar and appearing stronger than one is – propaganda.
Regarding oil production figures, we should consider the following facts when assessing them: Firstly, although the U.S. is still the largest oil producer in the world with a share of about 18% of world production, the U.S. are also the largest oil consumer, using-up more than 20% of world consumption. Therefore, the U.S. are at this time not even able to cover their own consumption. Secondly, the large oil-producing members of BRICS 11 have a big influence – or better – control over OPEC. Therefore, BRICS 11 will also rule OPEC and, therefore, control the price and distribution of oil, which has not been given the nick name “Black Gold” without good reason. Thirdly, the production cost of U.S. oil are about 2.5 times higher than the production cost of Saudi oil.
Regarding natural gas one should note, that with the accession of Iran into BRICS, the two largest natural gas producers worldwide are joint members of BRICS: Russia and Iran. The largest non-BRICS gas producer is the (still) U.S. allied Qatar. BRICS is, therefore, also a powerhouse regarding natural gas indeed.
Regarding gold, it should shortly be mentioned that China and Russia are number 1 and 2 respectively regarding global gold production. Gold I mention in here since there is a rather good chance that – somewhere in the future – gold will again play a major role in future money systems, being the only manner to discipline central bankers who basically only did one thing since 1914 – printing money, debasing the U.S. dollar and cynically claiming to protect the currency. There are a lot of people in the West who actually claim that gold is a pet rock. These people do not understand the history of the past 4’000 years where gold was always king. The mere fact that Nixon abolished the gold standard in order to avoid bankruptcy is not a good argument against gold, but should be one in its favor.
Bretton WoodsIn order to grasp the importance of the rather swift developments around BRICS and the rationale behind it, we shall look at the present system of the financial corset so imposed by the U.S. on the rest of the world. How did the U.S. achieve such dominance, how the hegemon behaved since, and finally the probability of a change of the system.
In 1944, the Americans reached the pinnacle of their power. They dominated the war effort together with the Russians, possessed 22,000 tons of gold, and the American industry produced 70% of the world’s manufactured goods. That is how complete dominance looks like: Military dominance, industrial dominance and gold – he who has the gold makes the rules.
On top of these facts, the Americans – as ever – being the undisputed masters of marketing, persuaded the Europeans to believe that it was actually the U.S. who liberated Europe from the evil Mr. Hitler. This was a diplomatic master stroke since cold facts and figures clearly showed that the Russians bore the largest chunk liberating Europe from the Nazis. The Russians decimated the German Wehrmacht in the East and – in this endeavor – killed around 5 times more German soldiers than all western allies together at the western front. This very ability of marketing and deception by the United States would serve them well until the present day.
Against such an overwhelming power, based on the three pillars of military might, industry and gold, the entire rest of the world – whether friend or foe – did not stand a chance to have any influence worth mentioning on influencing US intentions.
The Bretton Woods system was thus an emanation of absolute U.S. power and not – as portrayed in history books – a mechanism negotiated by the victorious powers of World War II in an atmosphere of friendly partnership.
Bretton Woods also sealed the demise of the British Empire by giving the Americans absolute power through pegging the currencies of 44 member states to the U.S. dollar, which in turn came out as the only currency of the world backed by gold.
The British Empire on which the sun finally set, proposed a system that involved the introduction of an international settlement currency called the Bancor. This idea by John Maynard Keynes foresaw the Bancor being used as an international unit of account to which participating currencies would have been pegged. The value of the Bancor itself was to be backed by gold. The gold-backed Bancor would have served as the unit of account. A fair system giving a chance to countries with merit, leading to a multipolar world. However, a multipolar world was the last thing the Americans intended to build – they wanted to become the hegemon and achieved their goal; the British had not a snowball’s chance in hell with their – in my opinion – great idea.
The Bretton Woods system gave all member states the contractual right to exchange the U.S. dollar they held for physical gold at a fix rate of U.S. dollar 35 per ounce of gold. Therefore, the Bretton Woods system should have forced the Americans to behave fiscally disciplined so that all member countries would keep confidence in the U.S. dollar believing that the U.S. dollar was indeed as good as gold.
The Americans, however, as the world power and hegemon, did not care one iota about the interests of their partners and, starting in the 1960s, printed more and more U.S. dollars to finance the Vietnam War and the Great Society project initiated by President Johnson. Both, the costs of the Vietnam War as well as the Great Society Project, the largest social program of the USA up to that time, whose main goal was to completely eliminate poverty and racial injustice, got completely out of hand.
The French were the first to realize that the U.S. dollar was losing value due to American money printing and began to exercise their contractual right to exchange their U.S. dollars for physical gold. Others followed suit. The Americans’ huge gold hoard melted away like butter in the sun. While the USA had more than 22,000 tons of gold at the end of the war, it was only over 8,000 tons in 1971.
On August 15, 1971, all major television stations in the U.S. interrupted their Sunday afternoon programming and President Nixon addressed the nation. He claimed that the speculators were waging an all-out war against the U.S. dollar and that he had thus ordered the U.S. dollar to be defended against these speculators. He informed the American people that he had instructed the treasury that the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold be temporarily suspended.
This all sounded very patriotic, but it was a complete lie. The speculators Nixon decried were actually member states of the Bretton Woods system who had realized that the Americans had ripped them off and were merely exercising their contractual right to exchange a debasing U.S. dollar for gold as stipulated in the Bretton Woods agreements. Nixon thus committed nothing less than breach of contract. The members of Bretton Woods were cheated and left sitting on their paper dollars being barred from getting their contractually stipulated gold. Petrodollar – an exorbitant privilegeThe deceived members of Bretton Woods decided not to hand over a declaration of war to the Americans, but kept silent like sheep and made a fist in their pockets. They probably believed that the Americans had dug their own grave by breaking the treaty.
However, they had not reckoned with the brilliant Henry Kissinger. The man was sent by Richard Nixon on Mission Impossible to save the Dollar. Kissinger convinced Saudi King Faisal to sell his oil exclusively in U.S. dollars and to invest the proceeds in American government securities. In return, smart Henry promised Faisal military protection. Other countries and commodities followed. Like Houdini, Kissinger freed the U.S. from a dire situation by making the impossible possible. Mission accomplished: The Petrodollar was born.
Now, if almost the entire world uses a single currency – the U.S. dollar – for almost all trading activities, all countries are obliged to hold this currency in reserve to pay their bills. These countries do not hold the reserves in cash, but invest them in American government securities to earn a return on their reserve holdings. In this way, the Americans managed to create the largest bond market in the world. It should be noted that the U.S. dollar is a product like any other, whose price is subject to the law of supply and demand. The U.S. dollar is not bought because it is a good investment in itself nor do most buyers purchase American products. No, U.S. dollars are required in order to buy nearly any product around the globe. This unjustifiably strengthens the price of the U.S. dollar. Why unjustifiably? – Other countries need to produce something worth buying that will hold up in the world market to keep their currencies valuable – the U.S. do not.
If now the whole world has to hold U.S. dollars and holds them in American government securities, the American government finances itself very cheaply because the price of American bonds does not depend on the strength of the American economy, but is based on compulsory buying due to the Petrodollar system – ingenious.
To put it bluntly, the U.S. could thus afford everything for over 50 years, because the bills were paid by others. Imagine a guy who goes shopping with a credit card that has not limit. He has a big mouth, buys everything he wants and never pays the credit card bill, but owes the money to those who sell him the goods, the latter never getting paid but receive an IOU only.
Only due to this – for the U.S. – brilliant system were the Americans able to increase their deficits to levels which can only be described as mind boggling: When Roland Reagan took office, US-debt was below 1 trillion, now it stands at over 33 trillion. Any other nation would have collapsed since nobody would dare to put money in such a black hole – but the whole world has to keep buying U.S. dollars due to the Petrodollar system. So, now we know how the U.S. could cultivate a lifestyle at the expense of others for over 50 years that in no way correlates with the performance of its economy. This great lifestyle is based only on the compulsion of the rest of the world to hold U.S. dollars. Giscard d’Estaing called this advantage an exorbitant privilege – rightly so. Petrodollar, a geopolitical power tool abused by the U.S.When it came to maintaining their privilege, the U.S. showed little squeamishness if anyone dared to break away from the Petrodollar regime. In recent history, two examples may be mentioned. We all remember the second Iraq war, when it was claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that this put the USA in danger. Despite a unambiguous report from the UN that there were no weapons of mass destruction or even a single hint that they existed, the Americans attacked Iraq anyway in order to rid the world of the evil Saddam Hussein and bring peace and freedom to the Iraqis. A big lie. Weapons of mass destruction were not to be found in Iraq; half a million civilians were killed – their relatives were certainly thrilled about this kind of democratic gift that the U.S. forced upon them. The reason for the Iraq war was a different one: the Petrodollar. Saddam Hussein – we don’t need to dwell on his qualities as a human being here – wanted to sell his oil not only in U.S. dollars but also in Euros. That was his death sentence. Anyone who claims otherwise is either ill-informed, naive or lying. The facts are on the table.
President Gaddafi ruled Libya with a strong hand for decades. He made Libya the richest country in Africa with an excellent infrastructure. Whether Colonel Gaddafi was a do-gooder or not is also not a topic of this discussion. Gaddafi also had a plan to get away from the U.S. dollar: He wanted to create the Gold Dinar to free Africa from the shackles of the Petrodollar. This, too, did not go over well with the Americans. The result was a dead Gaddafi and a completely destroyed country.
These two examples bring us to the geopolitical might the U.S. draws from the Petrodollar. It is important to know that only the U.S. Federal Reserve can actually hold U.S. dollars. Every bank in the world that offers U.S. dollar accounts ultimately only has a booking entry for a U.S. dollar amount and a contractual claim against the US central bank. This also explains that any payment made in U.S. dollars goes through the U.S. Thus, the Americans can single-handedly cut off any party – be it a country or an individual – from the U.S. dollar or freeze or seize a party’s U.S. dollars holdings.
The U.S. has been using this tool systematically since World War II with countries deemed worthy of being punished or destroyed economically, e.g., the U.S. sanction Cuba for over 60 years or Iran for over 40 years.
This use of force was justified by the USA with flimsiest arguments like communism, terrorism, war crimes etc. Whether the accusations were or are true or not, is completely irrelevant, because the judge sits in the U.S. and the legal basis is force. Depending on the decade you live in, you gets the label of communist, terrorist, drug dealer if you have the audacity to disagree with the hegemon. And the lapdogs such as the European “rulers” agree with the empire and serve as its willing assistants.
When the Americans impose such sanctions, they regularly threaten any party that does business with the sanctioned party with sanctions as well. These so-called secondary sanctions work since most international business is transacted in U.S. dollars and the respective companies – banks, commodity buyers, industrial suppliers – have no choice, but to comply.
A lot of people in the world are of the opinion that the U.S. are not behaving fairly towards the rest of the world and completely abuse their exorbitant privilege they possess with the Petrodollar.
This concludes our journey into the world of the Petrodollar and brings us to the reasons why BRICS want to say goodbye to the U.S. dollar, as the U.S. has overstepped the mark. After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West, led by the U.S., not only slapped Russia with a flurry of sanctions that has no equal in history, but also froze the foreign currency reserves of the Russian Central Bank. Shortly thereafter, discussions began as to what the West intended to do with the funds. After the freeze, the robbery is now being discussed.
I strongly believe that with the freezing of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank, the U.S. triggered a reaction they did not expect. Huge nations like India and China became suddenly concerned that the freezing of Russian Central Bank assets set a precedent and could also happen to them, especially in the more than tensioned geopolitical situation of today where anybody who cares can easily observe that the strategy of weakening Russia is only a pre-course of the battle the U.S. will lead against China. This is also the reason that BRICS seems to speed-up the process. Apart from the current 11 members of BRICS around 40 further nations applied to join. The trigger for the attack on the petrodollarThis concludes our journey into the world of the Petrodollar and brings us to the reasons why BRICS want to say goodbye to the U.S. dollar, as the U.S. has overstepped the mark. After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West, led by the U.S., not only slapped Russia with a flurry of sanctions that has no equal in history, but also froze the foreign currency reserves of the Russian Central Bank. Shortly thereafter, discussions began as to what the West intended to do with the funds. After the freeze, the robbery is now being discussed.
I strongly believe that with the freezing of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank, the U.S. triggered a reaction they did not expect. Huge nations like India and China became suddenly concerned that the freezing of Russian Central Bank assets set a precedent and could also happen to them, especially in the more than tensioned geopolitical situation of today where anybody who cares can easily observe that the strategy of weakening Russia is only a pre-course of the battle the U.S. will lead against China. This is also the reason that BRICS seems to speed-up the process. Apart from the current 11 members of BRICS around 40 further nations applied to join. ConsequencesWe have now seen that the might of the U.S. and the fate of their economic well-being very much hinges on the Petrodollar and that the American leadership is very well aware of this fact, crushing anybody who dares not to use the U.S. dollar in international trade.
In my opinion, however, the U.S. government misjudges its own leverage to put fear into other nations at this time. The Petrodollar system only works as flawlessly as it did in the past as long as the U.S. were able to control the world with mere threats, which were – once in a while – kinetically executed as it was the case with Iraq and Libya. However, the embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan did not help the U.S. to be seen as the military force they like to portray. The loss of influence over Saudi Arabia and Iran is a painful geopolitical sign for U.S. foreign policy. The peace reached between Saudi Arabia and Iran and then between Saudi Arabia and Syria is not only an economic disaster to the U.S. regarding oil, but a geopolitical catastrophe regarding U.S. influence in the Middle East. With these peace makings, the U.S. have been deprived of their ability to play out the strategy of divide et impera since the U.S. cannot manipulate these countries anymore and it seems that the U.S. are not feared anymore. As a group the middle east nations became too powerful and do sell their commodities in other currencies other than the U.S. dollar – a scenario which was completely unthinkable just a few years ago.
BRICS 11 will have one immediate consequence: Their members will not use the U.S. dollar when trading among each other. This is a huge problem for the U.S. since these countries will reduce their U.S. dollar holdings and therefore, the refinancing of the U.S. budget becomes a problem, leading to higher interest rates, which will in turn lead to higher inflation and a further debasement of the U.S. dollar because what cannot be raised in the international markets has to be printed.
The much-discussed introduction of a new settlement currency based on gold within BRICS is not a necessary element to de-dollarization. Such introduction faces substantial hurdles also due to the heterogeneity of the BRICS members. However, the consequences for the U.S. dollar will be immediate and problematic to the U.S.
We explained the vast power of the United States since World War II. It is in my opinion a myth that the U.S. hegemony is based on its military might. Far more important is their financial hegemony which – at least until now – allowed the U.S. to more or less control the world with a relatively small army and 9 aircraft carrier groups who regularly, as a show of force, bomb the hell out of small countries which do not have air forces or air defense systems to stand a chance against U.S. force. The whole U.S. power is based on the Petrodollar – that is my belief. ConclusionThere are authors who predict a quick demise of the Petrodollar and, therefore, of the American financial hegemony, which in turn will lead to the demise of the U.S. as the undisputed geopolitical world leader. Fact is, that a substantial part of the world will avoid using the U.S. dollar in trade. This development has already started. Therefore, the trend is set. However, it is in my opinion impossible to make any prediction as to the speed and timing of this trend. The proclaimed goal of BRICS and other organizations of the Global South, such as SCO, EEU, the Arab League and OPEC is to build a multipolar world. This seems to be a realistic goal. However, one should also take into consideration, that the larger these organizations become, the more heterogeneous they become and the difficulty of implementation of a common course of action will rise in line with the number of the respective members. Lastly, I would like to draw the attention to one historical fact a lot of people are not aware of. When the U.S. were at the peak of their might and forced Bretton Woods on the rest of the world, it still took 12 years until the U.S. dollar overtook the British pound in international trade in 1956. Some trends may be irreversible – but they take time. * * * This article appeared in English in the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report by Swiss financial expert Marc Faber and in abbreviated form on September 21, 2023 in the print edition of Weltwoche and on Weltwoche Online in German.
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BRICS Backlash: Huge Growth In China’s Aircraft Industry Is Flying Under The Radarby Tyler Durden, 26June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/brics-backlash-huge-growth-chinas-aircraft-industry-flying-under-radar Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, Let’s discuss Lyn Alden’s thought provoking Tweets on China’s aircraft industry. Under the Radar
 Lyn Alden-tweet-17June2023-Around the margins Lyn’s Tweet got me thinking about US exports in general. United States Top 10 Exports
The above list represents 2022, from United States Top 10 Exports Biden Policy Impact
China itself seeks to curtail #4 and #5. What remains are gems, precious metals, and pharmaceuticals.
I am surprised grain exports are not in the top 10. But as Biden has riled China on a number of fronts, it has increasingly turned to Brazil.
That’s just a shift though. The US will just export elsewhere, but perhaps it creates some friction losses. Airbus widens its lead over Boeing in ChinaMeanwhile, please note Boeing’s China Orders Dry Up on US Tensions in Boost for Airbus
The above article is from October 2022. Here’s an article from April of 2023. Airbus Widens its Lead Over Boeing in China With Plans for Second Finishing Line.
By 2041, if not much earlier, I side with Lyn Alden on aircraft. However, I don’t expect the BRICs idea will ever amount to much, quickly, if ever. What About the BRICs?
 Going Underground-tweet-16June2023-Almost 20 countries have applied to join BRICS Weaponizing the US DollarIt’s easy to understand the BRIC backlash. What Does China Do With a Dollar That’s No Longer Risk Free? Buy Gold?
That’s the question I asked in 2022 and there is still no clear answer.
Michael Pettis commented “As you know, the hard part of reducing the US dollar component of your reserves is figuring out what the alternative should be, and with such high and growing reserves (once you include the indirect reserves at the state-owned banks) that is a very difficult question to resolve.“
Talk is cheap and there is plenty of talk. I see it every day on Twitter. But Brazil, Russia, India, China and whatever countries have nothing in common. The Yuan does not float, and there is no grounds for any trust in any common currency.
The idea of a gold-backed yuan is laughable. China has capital controls and imprisons anyone who speaks out against its policies, hardly the foundation of a currency that inspires trust. Brazil’s President Calls for End to US Dollar Trade Dominance, So What?On April 1, I commented Brazil’s President Calls for End to US Dollar Trade Dominance, So What? Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the USOn May 13, I noted Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the US There is increasing reason to mistrust the dollar. But why anyone should trust a Russia-China sponsored currency.
There is no trust anywhere. If Russia or China offered a gold backed BRIC would you buy that or would you just buy gold? Trade is Not Between CountriesImportantly, trade is between individuals, not countries.
A Brazilian exporter to China needs the Brazilian Real or US dollars not a BRIC.
The Brazilian government can call for the end of dollar dominance but so what? What is the incentive for a Brazilian soybean exporter to use a BRIC?
Weaponing the dollar was a huge mistake. But the path to when and how that matters is unclear. Why trust any fiat currency? In Two Years, China More Than Doubles the US on Car Exports, Catches GermanyMeanwhile, please note In Two Years, China More Than Doubles the US on Car Exports, Catches Germany Expect the same for aircraft. It’s only a matter of time. * * * |
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What Are The BRICS Planning With August 22nd Durban Accords?by Tyler Durden, 14August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/what-are-brics-planning-august-22nd-durban-accords Authored by Peter Reagan at Birch Gold Group, In my first explainer about the BRICS nations, you met the players and you know why their decisions affect the global economy. But why do their decisions affect us?
You need to understand that first – before the August 22nd Durban Accords will make any sense. (But once you do understand, you’ll be astonished…)
Professor Reagan’s class is now in session! Global trade runs on U.S. dollarsSince World War II, the U.S. dollar has enjoyed the role of global reserve currency. You may have heard those words before – here’s what they mean…
Worldwide, when companies or nations transacting with one another don’t share a common currency, they use U.S. dollars. When a Chilean copper mine sells tons of raw ore to a Canadian refiner, they invoice (and get paid) in U.S. dollars.
Obviously, most nations don’t have a common currency (the exception is the Euro zone). So the use of dollars for international trade is simply huge, approximately 85% of the global total.
So the world relies on dollars to do business. That’s a great deal for us! That means, for example, that deficit spending and newly-printed money always have a home somewhere in the world. Simply because the world has to have dollars.
Like I said, that’s a great deal for the nation that exports dollars. It’s not such a great deal for everyone else… “It’s our currency, but it’s your problem”In 1971, President Nixon ended the convertibility of dollars to gold. The rest of the world, to put it mildly, went nuts. The gold standard was supposed to prevent inflation – but it hadn’t (primarily because American citizens weren’t allowed to swap dollars for gold since 1933).
Absent a gold standard, how was the U.S. going to guarantee the value of the dollar? When challenged with this question by his counterparts at a G-10 meeting in Rome, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally astounded his audience by proclaiming:
With no restraint on money-printing, the U.S. went on to make a whole lot more dollars… Take a look at this chart. The blue line indicates total dollars (M2, a measure of money supply) and the red line indicates purchasing power, which has declined 86.6% over the decades:  FRED graph M2 vs Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers
So, along with dollars, the current system exports inflation, too. That’s what Connally meant when he said it was their problem. Well, the rest of the world has just sucked it up for the last 50 years, right? Why are things different now? Weaponizing the dollarWhether it’s marketed as a “peacekeeping operation” or a “police action,” going to war is ruinously expensive at best. Therefore, the U.S. historically uses financial sanctions as a “non-kinetic” method of dissuading behavior not in line with U.S. interests.
Simply because the world has to have dollars, as I explained above, whoever controls the dollar also has an outsized impact on the global economy. When the U.S. uses financial sanctions against another nation, we call that “weaponizing the dollar.”
Now, this has been going on for decades. Cuba, for example, has been sanctioned for over 60 years! Iran, for more than 40 years. In some sense, weaponizing the dollar is business as usual for the U.S. So it came as no surprise when, in 2022, the U.S. did it again.
In response to the invasion of Ukraine, the White House froze the Russian central bank’s $300 billion in U.S. dollar assets. A stroke of Joe Biden’s pen rendered them completely worthless. In addition, the Russian economy was shut out of SWIFT, the international money transfer system.
The results of this “shock and awe” economic warfare were underwhelming. The Russian economy failed to collapse – instead, they kept up business as usual, taking payment in yuan or rupees or gold instead of dollars.
And there are other consequences. As Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine wrote back in March of 2022:
That’s what the Durban Accords on August 22nd are about – Levine’s “something else.” August 22nd may mark the beginning of the end of “business as usual”You’ve seen that the BRICS nations cannot be ignored. Note that two of the five core members (Russia and China) are historically rivals of U.S. geopolitical dominance.
Both nations have been actively signing “bilateral trade agreements” with other nations – meaning they can buy and sell from one another in their own currencies, rather than using the dollar as an intermediary. But the whole reason a global reserve currency exists is to make international trade less cumbersome.
So the Durban Accords are an agreement, presumably to be announced on August 22nd, to launch a new, international currency backed by commodities. “Backed by commodities” is important – because it’s the easiest way for a new currency to gain credibility. Think about it – what currency in existence today derives its value from anything other than hope?
This new BRICS currency would allow participating nations to circumvent U.S. financial sanctions – and to avoid the problem of dollar inflation. (In other words, “our currency” is about to become “our problem”).
Initially, my sources indicate the BRICS currency could be backed by commodities produced and traded by BRICS nations – things like oil, industrial metals and grain – or, more likely, gold.
Backing their new currency with gold would be an obvious move for the BRICS. China and Russia are, respectively, the world’s #1 and #2 gold-mining nations (South Africa and Brazil are #13 and #14, respectively). Both China and Russia already have sizable official gold reserves (6th and 7th largest in the world).
That, in essence, is what the Durban Accords are all about:
The Durban Accords may mean the first viable, useful alternative to the U.S. dollar. And that’s why this is a very big deal. P.S. On July 7, the Russian state-run media outlet RT confirmed the goal of the Durban Accords was to launch a “new trading currency backed by gold.” |
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Escobar: The Russia-Global South Connection – Africa As Strategic Partnerby Tyler Durden, 29July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-russia-global-south-connection-africa-strategic-partner Authored by Pepe Escobar, The second Russia-Africa summit, this week in St. Petersburg, should be seen as a milestone in terms of Global South integration and the concerted drive by the Global Majority towards a more equal and fair multipolar order.  Flags promoting the second Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum are pictured outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg-Peter Kovalev TASS The summit welcomes no less than 49 African delegations. President Putin previously announced that a comprehensive declaration and a Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan all the way to 2026 will be adopted.
Madaraka Nyerere, the son of Tanzania’s legendary anti-colonial activist and first President, Julius Nyerere, set the context, telling RT that the only “realistic” way for Africa to develop is to unite and stop being an agent for foreign exploitative powers.
And the path towards cooperation goes through BRICS – starting with the crucial upcoming summit in South Africa, and the incorporation of more African nations into BRICS+. Nyerere’s father was a very important force behind the Organization of African Unity, which later became the African Union.
South Africa’s Julius Malema succinctly expanded the geoeconomic concept of a united Africa: “They [neocolonial powers] thrive on the division of the African continent. Can you imagine the minerals of the DRC combined with the minerals of South Africa, and with a new currency based on the minerals? What can we do to the dollar? If we become a United States of Africa, with our minerals alone, we can defeat the dollar.” No humanitarian nature, no dealThe Russian-African Conference of the Valdai Club functioned like a sort of final expert watch synchronization in the run-up to St. Petersburg. The first session was particularly relevant.
That came after the publication of a comprehensive analysis by President Putin of Russia-Africa relations, with a special emphasis on the recently collapsed grain deal involving the UN, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.
Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Russian Federation Council, has stressed how “Ukraine, Washington and NATO were interested in the grain corridor for sabotage”. In his Op-Ed, Putin explained how, “for almost a year, a total of 32.8 million tons of cargo were exported from Ukraine under the ‘deal’, of which more than 70% went to high-and above-middle-income countries, including the European Union, while countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, as well as Yemen and Afghanistan accounted for less than 3% of the total volume – less than one million tons.” So that was one of the key reasons for Russia to leave the grain deal. Moscow published a list of requirements which would need to be fulfilled for Russia to reinstate it.
Among them: a real, practical end to sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizers shipped to world markets; no more obstacles for banks and financial institutions; no more restrictions on charter of ships and insurance – that means clean logistics for all food supplies; restoration of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline.
And a particularly crucial item: the restoration of “the original humanitarian nature of the grain deal.”
There’s no way the collective West subjected to the Straussian neocon psychos who control US foreign policy will fulfill all or even some of these conditions.
So Russia, by itself, will offer grain and fertilizers free of charge for the poorest nations and contracts for grain supply at normal commercial terms for the others. Supply is guaranteed: Moscow had the biggest grain harvest ever during this season.
This is all about solidarity. At the Valdai session, a key discussion was around the importance of solidarity in the struggle against neo-colonialism and for global equality and justice.
Oleg Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, stressed how European “former” partners persist on the one-way track of shifting blame to Russia as Africa is “acquiring agency” and “denying neo-colonialism.”
Ozerov mentioned how “France-Afrique is collapsing – and Russia is not behind it. Russia is ensuring that Africa acts as one of the powers of the multipolar world”, as “a member of the G20 and present in the UN Security Council.” Moreover, Moscow is interested to expand Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) free trade deals towards Africa. Welcome to Global South “multi-vector” cooperationThis all spells out a common theme in the Russia-Africa summit: “multi-vector cooperation”. The South African perspective, especially in the light of the raging controversy over Putin’s non-physical presence in the BRICS summit, is that “Africans are not taking sides. They want peace.”
What matters is what Africa brings to BRICS: “Markets, and a young, educated population.”
On the Russian bridge to Africa, what is needed, for instance, is “railways along coastlines”: connectivity, which can be developed with Russian assistance, much as China has been investing widely across Africa under BRI projects. Russia, after all, “trained many professionals across Africa.”
There’s a wide consensus, to be reflected in the summit, that Africa is becoming an economic growth pole in the Global South – and African experts know it. State institutions are becoming more stable. The abysmal crisis in Russia-Western relations ended up boosting interest in Africa. No wonder that’s now a national priority for Russia.
So what can Russia offer? Essentially an investment portfolio, and crucially the idea of sovereignty – without requesting anything in return.
Mali is a fascinating case. It goes back to investments by the USSR training the workforce; at least 10,000 Malians, who were offered first-class education, including 80% of their professors.
That intersects with the terrorism threat of the Salafi-jihadi variety, “encouraged” by the usual suspects even before 9/11. Mali holds at least 350,000 refugees, all of them unemployed. France’s “initiatives” have been deemed “totally inefficient”.
Mali needs “broader measures” – including the launch of a new trading system. Russia after all taught how to set up infrastructure to create new jobs; time to fully profit from the knowledge of those trained in the USSR. Moreover, in 2023 over 100 students from Mali are coming to Russia on state-sponsored scholarships.
As Russia makes inroads in French-speaking Africa, former “partners”, predictably, demonize Mali’s cooperation with Russia. With no avail. Mali has just dropped French as its official language (that has been the case since 1960).
Under the new constitution, passed overwhelmingly with 96.9% in a June 15 referendum, French will be only a working language, while 13 national languages will also receive official language status.
Essentially, this is about sovereignty. Coupled with the fact that the West, as recognized from Mali to Ethiopia – the only African nation never colonized by Europeans – is losing moral authority across Africa at astonishing speed.
Multitudes in Africa now understand that Russia actively encourages freedom from neocolonialism. When it comes to geopolitical capital, Moscow now seems to enjoy all it takes to build a fruitful, Global Majority-centered strategic partnership. |
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Russia Seeks To Work With Africa To Weaken Dollar As Putin Hosts Summitby Tyler Durden, 27July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/russia-seeks-work-africa-weaken-dollar-major-summit-opens
Talk of de-dollarization has long been in the air, particularly in the lead-up to BRICS nations gathering in South Africa in August, with the question high on the agenda.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday issued a direct, provocative challenge to Washington and its dollar dominance, asserting that Moscow will work with African leaders to weaken the US dollar.
Zakharova, per remarks cited in RIA Novosti, denounced the United States’ using it as a tool for global hegemony, and as “a means of realizing its aggression.” The foreign ministry comments came just ahead of the high-level summit of African leaders set to be held in St. Petersburg at the end of this week.  Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Russian President Vladimir Putin
African leaders have begun arriving in Russia Wednesday for what is the second Russia-Africa summit since 2019, set to kick off Thursday and go through Friday.
Proposals for ending the Ukraine conflict will be discussed, but also alternatives in the wake of the collapse of the UN-backed Black Sea Initiative grain deal.
While President Putin is also hosting individual meetings with key head of states such as the Ethiopian and Egyptian leaders, there’s a degree of disappointment given the low attendance this year, clearly a result of the Ukraine crisis and the West’s pressure campaign and sanctions against Moscow.
The Associated Press noted that “the number of heads of states attending shrank from 43 then to 17 now because of what the Kremlin described as a crude Western pressure to discourage African nations from attending it.”
In light of this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has highlighted “unconcealed brazen interference by the U.S., France and other states through their diplomatic missions in African countries, and attempts to put pressure on the leadership of these countries in order to prevent their active participation in the forum.”
“It’s absolutely outrageous, but it will in no way prevent the success of the summit,” Peskov told reporters.
 Russia in South Africa-tweet-26July2023-Official delegations from African countries
However, many more countries will be represented even if not through their heads of state, with the Kremlin underscoring that 32 other African countries will send senior government officials or their ambassador for the major summit, which Putin will oversee. |
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Escobar: BRICS 11 – Strategic Tour de Forceby Tyler Durden, 27August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-brics-11-strategic-tour-de-force
Chinese President Xi Jinping defined all the major decisions embedded in the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa as “historic”. That may be seen as an understatement.
 BRICS Summit South Africa 22August2023 It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes.
President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg.
India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia.
So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.
So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion.
Bur first things first. At that fateful table in Johannesburg, Russia supported Egypt. China went all out for Persian Gulf magic: Iran, UAE and the Saudis. Of course: Iran-China are already deep into a strategic partnership, and Riyadh is already accepting payment for energy in yuan.
Brazil and China supported Argentina, Brazil’s troubled neighbor, running the risk of having its economy fully dollarized, and also a key commodity provider to Beijing. South Africa supported Ethiopia. India, for a series of very complex reasons, was not exactly comfortable with 3 Arab/Muslim members (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt). Russia assuaged New Delhi’s fears.
All of the above respects geographic principles and imprints the notion of BRICS representing the Global South. But it goes way beyond that, blending cunning strategy and no-nonsense realpolitik.
India was mollified because Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the table in Johannesburg negotiating on behalf of President Putin, and highly respected by New Delhi, fully understood that a new, single BRICS currency is a long way away. What really matters, short and medium term, is expanding intra-BRICS trade in their national currencies.
That was stressed by New Development Bank (NDB) president Dilma Rousseff in her report to the South African summit hosts – even as Brazilian President Lula once again emphasized the importance of setting up a work group to discuss a BRICS currency.
Lavrov understood how New Delhi is absolutely terrified of secondary sanctions by the US, in case its BRICS role gets too ambitious. Prime Minister Modi is essentially hedging between BRICS and the completely artificial imperial obsession embedded in the terminology “Indo-Pacific” – which masks renewed containment of China. The Straussian neo-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy are already furious with India buying loads of discounted Russian oil.
New Delhi’s support for a new BRICS currency would be interpreted in Washington as all-out trade war – and sanctions dementia would follow. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s MbS doesn’t care: he’s a top energy producer, not consumer like India, and one of his priorities is to fully court his top energy client, Beijing, and pave the way for the petroyuan. It Takes Just a Single Strategic MoveNow let’s get into the strategic stakes. For all practical purposes, in Eurasian terms, BRICS 11 is now on the way to lord over the Arctic Sea Route; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); BRI’s East West Corridors; the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; and the Suez Canal.
That blends several overland corridors with several nodes of the Maritime Silk Roads. Nearly total integration in the Heartland and the Rimland. All with just a single strategic move in the geopolitical/geoeconomic chessboard.
Much more than an increase of BRICS 11 collective GDP to 36% of the world’s total (already larger than the G7), with the group now encompassing 47% of the world’s population, the top geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough is how BRICS 11 is about to literally break the bank on the energy and commodities market fronts.
By incorporating Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, BRICS 11 instantly shines on as an oil and gas powerhouse. BRICS 11 now controls 39% of global oil exports; 45.9% of proven reserves; and at least 47.6% of all oil produced globally, according to InfoTEK.
With BRICS 11 possibly including Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan as new members as early as in 2024, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally.
Inevitable corollary: operations settled in local currencies bypassing the US dollar. And inevitable conclusion: petrodollar in a coma. The Empire of Chaos and Plunder will lose its free lunch menu: control of global oil prices and means to enforce “diplomacy” via a tsunami of unilateral sanctions.
Already in the horizon, direct BRICS 11-OPEC+ symbiosis is inevitable. OPEC+ is effectively run by Russia and Saudi Arabia. A ground-shaking geoeconomic reorientation is at hand, involving everything from routes plied by global supply chains and new BRICS roads to the progressive interconnection of BRI, the Saudi Vision 2030 and massive port expansion in the UAE.
By choosing Ethiopia, BRICS expands its African reach on mining, minerals and metals. Ethiopia is rich in gold, platinum, tantalum, copper, niobium and offers vast potential in oil and natural gas exploration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, incidentally, are also involved in mining.
This all spells out fast, progressive integration of North Africa and West Asia. How Diplomacy Goes a Long WayThe BRICS 11 Shock of the New, in the energy sphere, is a sharp historical counterpoint to the 1973 oil shock, after which Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. Now Saudi Arabia under MbS is operating a tectonic shift, in the process of becoming strategically aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran.
Diplomatic coup does not even begin to describe it. This is the second stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing. The Russia-China strategic leadership, working patiently in synch, never lost sight of the ball.
Now compare it with collective West’s “strategies”, such as the G7-imposed oil price cap. Essentially the G7 “coalition of the willing” self-imposed a price cap on Russian crude imported by sea. The result is that they had to start buying way more oil products from Global South nations which ignored the price cap and duly increased their purchase of Russian crude.
Guess who are the top two: BRICS members China and India. After wallowing in several stages of denial, the collective West may – or may not – realize it’s a fool’s dream to attempt to “de-couple” the West-ruled part of the global economy from China, whatever is spewed out by Washington.
BRICS 11 now shows, graphically, how the “Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe” is more non-aligned with the West than anytime in recent history.
By the way, the president of the G77, Cuban leader Diaz-Canel, was at the BRICS summit representing the de-facto new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 actually incorporates no less than 134 nations. Most are African. Xi Jinping in Johannesburg met in person with the leaders of most of them.
The collective West, in panic, regards all of the above as “dangerous”. So the last refuge is, predictably, rhetorical: “de-coupling”, “de-risking”, and similar idiocies.
Yet that may also get practically dangerous. As in the first ever trilateral summit in Camp David on August 18 between the Empire and two Asian vassals, Japan and South Korea. That may be interpreted as the first move towards a military-political Asian NATO even more toxic than Quad or AUKUS, obsessed to simultaneously contain China, Russia and the DPRK. The Collective Outstripping of the Global NorthThe UN lists 152 nations in the world as “developing countries”. BRICS 11 is aiming at them – as they outstrip the Global North on everything from population growth to overall contribution to global GDP growth measured by PPP.
In the past 10 years since the announcement of BRI first in Astana and then in Jakarta, Chinese financial institutions have lent nearly $1 trillion for infrastructure connectivity projects across the Global South. The upcoming BRI forum in Beijing will signal a renewed drive. That’s the BRI-BRICS symbiosis.
In the G20 last year, China was the first nation to lobby for the inclusion of the 55-member African Union (AU). That may happen at the G20 summit next month in New Delhi; in that case, Global South representation will be close to parity with the Global North.
Claims that Beijing was organizing a malign conspiracy to turn BRICS into a weapon against the G7 are infantile. Realpolitik – and geoeconomic indicators – are dictating the terms, configuring the Shock of the New: the G7’s irreversible irrelevance with the rise of BRICS 11. |
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Luongo: BRICS Summit Proves Geography Trumps Currencyby Tyler Durden, 03September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/luongo-brics-summit-proves-geography-trumps-currency Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
![The 3-ruble commemorative silver coins that read "A Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State in Ufa" and "A Meeting of the BRICS Heads of State in Ufa", June 26, 2015. On June 22, 2015, the Central Bank of Russia issued the coins for the July SCO and BRICS summits in Ufa. [Photo/CFP]](http://www.jerusalemcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/BRICS-coin.png) The 3-ruble commemorative silver coins that read “A Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State in Ufa” and “A Meeting of the BRICS Heads of State in Ufa”, June 26, 2015. On June 22, 2015, the Central Bank of Russia issued the coins for the July SCO and BRICS summits in Ufa. [Photo/CFP] Don’t take this for grousing, because it isn’t. It’s just an observation born of years of experience. I’ve come to understand what a lack of amplification means; that this is the story no one wants to be told.
So, this begs the question, why do they want it told now? In many ways this is how I know I’m usually on the right track with respect to a particular issue. It’s my forever internalizing the baseball great Wee Willy Keeler who famously said that baseball is an easy game, “Just hit ’em where they ain’t.”
So, a lot of important someones wanted us to know about de-dollarization this year. They had their reasons to promote this concept. And, as always, it has to do with influencing global capital flow while distracting the commentary from what was really on the agenda.
For Davos de-dollarization is just another attack vector on the United States. By playing up the problems the US has domestically as well as geopolitically they create uncertainty. Capital hates uncertainty.
Throw in a purposefully-belligerent and incompetent “Biden” administration and you have a perfect cocktail of uncertainty which keeps capital markets globally distrustful of both the near-term policy mixed with the long-term trends.
Conclusion? The US is FUBAR.[EDD: FUBAR is a military acronym that stands for “Fucked Up Beyond Any Repair or All Recognition“. ] Russia is at war with the West, so, of course, Vladimir Putin will talk his book on de-dollarization. He is the point man on the BRICS being “anti-dollar.”
There’s only this one little problem with all of this: The US dollar itself and the lack of alternative infrastructure for ditching it. Despite all of the jawboning and, frankly, propaganda on this subject, the reality is far, far different.
While everyone is talking de-dollarization, the real currency losing it’s position in global trade is the euro. But no one is talking about de-eruoization. I guess it doesn’t roll off the tongue as well?
According to the latest data from the SWIFT RMB Tracker, there is no currency that has lost more ground in global trade than the euro. In just over two years the euro has fallen from 39.5% of global payments outside the euro-zone to just 13.6%.  Global Payments Outside Euro zone-August 2023 The dollar absorbed most of those payments with the British pound, Japanese yen and, yes, the Chinese renminbi taking up the rest.
So, the great distraction about de-dollarization is, in part, about paying no attention to the rapid demise of the euro and the emerging sovereign bond crisis that ECB President Christine Lagarde works everyday to paper over.
I’ve talked about this so much people are getting sick of it. (Here, Here, Here, and Here) Eventually, however, no matter how hard they try to game the math, paint the tape and make deals to keep up appearances, markets are simply smarter than central planners.
So, with this in mind I fully expect over the next couple of months for the bond vigilantes to return with a vengeance now that Jerome Powell has everyone’s attention. He can further up his street cred with another 25 basis point raise in September, but honestly, he may not have to. BRICS in the WallBut, back to the BRICS. If de-dollarization wasn’t the point of the Summit this year, then what was? Expansion.And not just expansion for the sake of expansion, but geographically strategic expansion. The BRICS formally added six countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia. They could have added others and almost added Algeria if not for a last-minute veto by India on behalf of France.
Algeria is symbolic of the fight between Italy and France for access to African oil and gas. There can be no Ital-exit from the EU without Italy minimizing France’s influence in North Africa, shoring up its energy needs as collateral for a return to the lira.
Thankfully, with the help of Russia and China, the Africans are taking care of the Italians’ French Problem all on their own. If there is one common theme beyond the geography (more on that in a bit) with all six of these countries it is their relationship with the supposedly former British empire. From the Arab states and Egypt to those that defied the Brits in the past — e.g. Iran and Argentina — these additions represent a power shift that is profound.
One look at the world map should make this point crystal clear.  BRICS Map-Post 2023 Summit
Countries in Red are members of the alliance. Those in green have formally applied for membership and yellow are those that have openly expressed interest.
But it is the 5 countries clustered around the center of global trade that should grab your attention. Because all talk of a BRICS common currency are nothing more than theatre if there isn’t a fully developed alternative financial supply chain to capture the profits and minimize currency risks and friction for all the members. Taking them one by one let’s discuss.
Meet the New Boss?In my last article on geopolitics, I brought up the importance of physical collateral for the future of the West’s financial dominance, especially that of Europe. The main reason why I keep harping on why Europe is in such trouble is because it’s obvious now that those with physical collateral, including the US, are no longer interested in selling that collateral to a colonial-minded Europe at cut-rate prices.
Russia, under Putin, was happy to court the EU as energy partners because he thought it would secure Russia’s future from potential war with Europe. He was willing to sell Europe cheap gas to maximize the total profit to Russia, not directly measurable in things like GDP or trade balances.
Some capital is political. Some profits are social, despite crappy Marxist commentary to the contrary. This is why he went along with Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plea to build Nordstream 2, knowing it would incense the US/UK Neocons.
The peace dividend to Russia was just too big not to make a run at. Merkel’s betrayal of Putin over NS2 and the Minsk agreements are why we are in the mess we’re in today.
The Neocons struck geopolitical gold with blowing up Nordstream, depriving Germany and France of much needed gas. Things are so bad in Germany that they are now quietly dismantling their wind farms to rebuild coal-fired plants, going back to the one energy source they have in abundance in Europe.
Now Africa is in revolt against France. Last month it was Niger. This month it is Gabon. There is no way France can respond to all of these revolts on their own. They need outside intervention and it doesn’t look like it’s coming.
Queen Warmonger Vicky Nudelman went to Niger and was rebuffed. Reports are now circulating that she and her staff were caught completely by surprise with events in Africa and had no solutions, offers or even credible threats to bring to bear.
If you map Nuland to the UK/US Neocons who are not necessarily aligned with Davos then this report should shock you, because it tells us that neither are capable of moving into the power vacuum left by these juntas seizing power.
It says, with little equivocation, that all of the colonial powers of Europe are paper tigers. What started in Burkina Faso and Mali is spreading like wildfires set by Climate Change arsonists in Canada across Africa.
French President Emmanuel Macron can only scream impotently in Paris, Nuland can shake her fist screaming, “You’ll rue the day…,” and the US Dept. of Defense stands by and says exactly nothing.
At the same time clashes between Syrian Arab Army troops and US occupying forces east of the Euphrates River are back under the headlines. Do you get the picture yet? The fight for physical collateral is dovetailing perfectly with capturing control of the major trade routes. While the UK and their Neocon quislings are hell bent on starting WWIII over Ukraine, c.f. drone strikes on Russia’s Pskov airport from Latvia, the BRICS bloc understands that their best course of action is to continue building new relationships, networks, and pressuring the centuries-old colonial networks that have financed their power.
Staying out of a direct hot war simply makes good strategic sense. Attrition is a bitch, energetically. Now they are being forced to expend their seed capital built up over these centuries on influencing events to their liking, and it’s clear they really don’t have the resources to do so for very long.
Against that backdrop, de-dollarization is the least of their worries. It will be the thing that grinds away in the background, like Powell’s shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet, and will just emerge out of these events.
The choice the West is now facing is at what point do they stop fighting this and finally come to the negotiating table. Some factions, like the US military and the banking sector, have already made their intentions clear. The others? Not so much. When facing extinction, that’s when you find out where someone’s true loyalties are. * * * |
![© 2023 American College of Physicians. Used with Permission. Erica S. Shenoy, Hilary M. Babcock, Karen B. Brust, et al. Universal Masking in Health Care Settings: A Pandemic Strategy Whose Time Has Come and Gone, For Now. Ann Intern Med. [Epub 18 April 2023]](http://www.jerusalemcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Universal-Masking-in-Health-Care-Settings.jpeg)
