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Trump’s Economic Era

bonds. Soon other nations followed suit with the
establishment of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1975.

The Petrodollar System made the dollar the
world’s reserve (standard) currency. A turning point
came when Saddam Hussein agreed to accept the euro
as payment for oil—one year before the attack on the
Twin Towers in 2001. Hussein threatened the
Petrodollar System, prompting the Neoconservatives to
declare War on Terror and to invade Iraq in 2003. By
June of 2003, Iraq’s oil was once again a part of the
Petrodollar System. Libyan leader Muammar
al-Gaddafi, who was murdered by Western-backed
rebels on October 20, 2011, planned to create a
gold-backed African currency to compete with the
dollar and the euro.

On November 4, 2017, Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salmans arrested the country’s most
prominent officials and business elites and seized
billions of dollars of their money. This purge will alter
the landscape for the world’s economy, it will change
how Saudi Arabia does business with the world, and it
will undermine the U.S. dollar as the world’s standard
currency. The Crown Prince has pledged to modernize
the Saudi economy and wean it off its reliance on oil.
America is on the cusp of another paradigm shift,
a change at least as fundamental as what happened in
1971. Countries are beginning to sever their tie to the
American dollar by finding alternative trade
arrangements. So far, 23 nations, representing 60% of
the world’s GDP, are setting up swaps bypassing the
dollar. Russia has announced that they are establishing
a clearance system without dollars.

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