Iraq Economic News and Points to Ponder Tuesday AM 3-19-24

Iraq Economic News and Points to Ponder Tuesday AM 3-19-24

Tlm724 Administrator Bondlady’s Corner

Towards A Multipolar Global Monetary Policy

 Economical 03/18/2024

I do not believe that there is an authority stronger than the dollar in Iraq, as all authorities submit to it willingly, and there are those who justify themselves by defending their dollar interests and others who advise against harming this authority out of fear or greed.

Can we find a way out close to this authority that controls everything, especially since Most of Iraq's revenues are generated through the dollar.

In 2014, BNP Paribas was punished with a fine of $9 billion to be paid to the United States as a result of financing exports from Cuba, Sudan, and Iran with US dollars, because the three countries are under US sanctions, even though the financing process took a fraction of a second when it passed through an account ( Paribas) in New York and nothing more, which made an American court issue this heavy fine despite the fact that all the procedures followed in the transfers were legal according to European laws and despite the fact that the aforementioned bank is a global multinational institution and a financial services holding company that belongs to a friendly country and is headquartered in Paris and is knowledgeable.

The nature of international financial laws is broad, yet it was subjected to this harsh punishment, and  it was not taken into consideration that this bank belongs to allied countries and is one of the Big Five in the Security Council.

These harsh, unilateral measures enabled the Americans to impose their financial hegemony on other countries of the world.

As a result of this method and the fear of harsh sanctions, European companies left Iran in 2018 after they complied with the decision of former US President Donald Trump after his unilateral withdrawal from the Vienna Nuclear Agreement.

In 2015, when the government of Mr. Adil Abdul Mahdi refused to comply with the implementation of sanctions on Iran, it was overthrown.

It is clear that due to the strength of the dollar, the United States has dominated global trade for a long time, but recently the views of many global financial institutions have differed regarding the future of the US dollar, between those who believe in its weakness in the future and those who believe that it will remain strong as the only stable international currency guaranteed in circulation.

 Seventy-eight years ago, specifically after the end of World War II, the dollar became the undisputed reserve and exchange currency around the world,

but after the world became involved with it on the basis of replacing it with gold at a fixed price of $35 per ounce, and after central banks flocked to the dollar in order to build up their own reserves.

Its deposits were as stable as gold, in addition to being easy to keep or manage.

At that time, the Americans began to produce gold when they printed dollars as a counterweight to it.

For example, the Bank of France, starting in 1965, systematically replaced gold with the dollar, before America surprised the world on August 15. / August 1971, without prior coordination with any of its allies, by ending the direct international transfer from the dollar to gold.

After abandoning gold as a complete cover for money, the currency cover began to combine several components, including gold and the major foreign currencies the state owns (the dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc, the Australian dollar, and the Chinese yuan), which made every fluctuation in The financial and monetary policies in the United States lead to the instability of the currencies of emerging and developing countries, up or down in a way that does not reflect the economic performance of those countries, which constitutes a source of continuous economic danger.

This matter has prompted some countries to use their local currency to settle their commercial transactions in order to avoid the risks of dollar fluctuations or Use of currencies other than US currency.

 After the  significant rise in global oil prices starting in 1973 and  as a result of huge dollar bills, a problem or phenomenon called the “petrodollar” emerged, as the huge amounts produced by the energy markets began to be invested in American markets, which provided a comparative advantage for the United States economy, and led to great frustration among the people.

Its European partners in particular, which prompted them, as a natural reaction, to issue a unified European currency in 1999, where the euro was established as a global currency, but it was unable to compete with the dollar due to the lack of a unified European treasury corresponding to the liquidity of New York markets, and thus the dollar remained in its position and influence as the reserve currency. The main trading in the world.

When the global financial crisis occurred in 2008, it was expected that the dollar’s ​​dominance would decline because the crisis was the responsibility of the United States alone, but the strange irony is that its dominance was strengthened, which prompted President Barack Obama to confirm in March 2009 that the dollar would maintain its dominance over global trade, basing this on political reasons.

Not economic, which is (that America has the most stable and transparent systems in the world), and an example of that transparency is that everyone is aware of how the US budget, the Federal Reserve, and the financial system work, while their Chinese counterparts operate in a way that lacks complete transparency, which has made the dollar a safe haven without a real competitor.

In the short term, which prompts investors to resort to it in any subsequent financial crisis, but this does not negate the decline in its use globally, as the control of the American currency over the world has begun to lose its momentum with the emergence of the phenomenon of “weaponizing the dollar” after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, as it resulted in Western economic sanctions on Russia has a bad influence on the global economic, commercial and financial systems in a way that has raised great concerns in global markets regarding the modification of the global financial system.

This anxiety and fear led to a decline in global monetary reserves in dollars to 59% currently, after they constituted about 72% in 1999, which is a significant decline in a relatively short period.

However, the de-dollarization of the world will not be completed in the short term, but it is clear that the movement that has begun is irreversible,  especially since the United States acted “stupidly” when it made its currency a weapon of political pressure, and they (the Americans) have pushed the world - from... Unintentionally - to form a global movement to get rid of the dollar in order to shake the world’s confidence in American financial actions, especially the unilateral financial sanctions it imposed on many countries.

The United States was not satisfied with that, as it further depleted the reputation of the dollar when it froze the foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Central Bank denominated in dollars in 2022 after their participation as a party in the Russian-Ukrainian war, which made non-Western world leaders fear similar behavior with their countries if a country entered into a war.

With one of the neighbors, and that conflict did not satisfy Washington, this means that their countries will lose the bulk of their foreign exchange reserves, which prompted them to begin gradual work to reduce those dollar reserves.

 Global resistance to the dominance of the dollar has taken different dimensions, but the clearest example is the increased activity of the BRICS group in accelerating the launch of its own currency to finance its stock exchanges, and China’s development of its own electronic settlement system between banks to constitute an alternative to the Western-controlled SWIFT system after it banned the “SWIFT” association.

Almost all Iranian banks, and later Russian banks, stopped using the messaging system, as they justified their actions with money laundering problems and not with US sanctions, which prompted Tehran to link its domestic financial clearing system (SEPAM) to Russia’s financial message transfer system (SPFS), which theoretically enables the two countries. Of procedure Cross-border transactions.

This activity was then reinforced when Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met on December 15 and announced plans to develop a joint system for financial messages and clearing between Russia and China.

This announcement included an invitation to international banks to join this system with the aim of deterring the continuing Western threat of economic sanctions.

 The BRICS group of countries, which includes the fastest growing economies in the world, represented by Russia and China, along with India, South Afric Brazil, and other developing countries that have recently joined and others are awaiting approval of their accession requests.

The five founding countries of the BRICS structure do not explicitly hide their intentions, namely that they are working to form a new international order that believes in pluralism and the rejection of exclusivity in political and economic decision-making.

They do not hide their political goals of attracting international forces that reject the current international order.

This group acknowledges its weakness, represented by the close relationship of some of its members with the United States,  but it considers it a challenge that can be overcome over time, through the availability of significant strength factors, such as its share of foreign currency reserves.

Four countries, including (China, Brazil, India, and South Africa) hold about 40% of the world’s total monetary reserves, while  China alone has about 2.4 trillion dollars, which is a very large number, if we know that it is enough to buy two-thirds of the companies in the Nasdaq index.

It is the second largest creditor after Japan.

 As for Russia, it classifies its battle with the West as an “existential battle,” and considers its membership in this group to be a protection for it.

It supports its strategic directions and its own choices in formulating a new global principle that emphasizes that all roads no longer lead to Washington alone.

The serious work of the BRICS group can be seen through the formation of a group of important financial institutions, such as the establishment of the New Development Bank, based in Shanghai, to become a counterpart and competitor to the World Bank, as well as the establishment of the BRICS Fund, opposite the International Monetary Fund.

These two important establishments  announced their goals of supporting growth and development at the international level, which     represents the first step in the BRICS countries’ plan to create a new global order, and to  liberate the world from the restrictions of the two financial institutions  (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) that the United States controls in formulating their general policy. In a way that serves its interests, as its opponents accuse it of.

 An important factor accelerating the emergence of the new system is the utilitarian nature of American economic institutions themselves. 

As it is expected to follow its interests and join the new system, it will simply not be more patriotic than the European economic institutions that abandoned Europe and left for America, when their interests required that, when America emerged as a unique power in the world at the financial level, and we may witness the transfer of American capital to China.

And its allies faster than expected, and then the new international bank and fund will be more attractive to international capital, which will contribute to increasing the growing competitiveness of the BRICS markets in attracting global capital, and this will help the group in overcoming the varying points of weakness among its countries represented by poverty rates.

Inequality, in addition to the geographical distance between these countries and the presence of ideological currents of a sharp competitive nature, as is the case between Russia and China.

 Iraq, as a developing country, is important to all parties to the global conflict because of its position in the Middle East and  its possession of the most important elements of the conflict represented by energy.

It can  make the right decision after the picture has become clear about the nature of the global economic trends and  work to attract everyone to compete in investments that benefit the people of Iraq and  provide... Important opportunities in building infrastructure that form the basis for those investments, both Western and Eastern, but he must choose emerging trends when he is in the position of choice, noting that what is rumored about devastating American sanctions against Iraq are merely ideas and stereotypes repeated by some teenagers in politics.

And the economy, because I believe that the United States will not resort to such a measure because it will close the expiry date of its remaining confidence as a global economic authority.

If it does so, it will lose Iraq forever, and it does not want that at all.    

https://alsabaah.iq/93642-.html    

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