The Duran Podcast - Dedollarisation and BRICS

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Dedollarisation and BRICS

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the dollar and bricks. What is going on with the narrative of the dollarization, the narrative of a BRICS reserve currency, which is something that BRICS is not looking to do, at least not in the short to medium term. And the Trump administration's statements that they will protect the dollar at all costs, even if it means placing 100% tariffs on BRICS, countries, 150% tariffs on BRICs countries if they opt out of the dollar. What are your thoughts

on the USD BRICs and reserve currency? Right. Well, the word that is coming out, and, you know, this is actually not just, you know, from private sources, which I know we both have, but also, if you look at the statements of US officials, that the single biggest issue for the Americans at the moment, the one that barrenly that they've been bringing up in private discussions with the Russians, the one that took up a lot of the time in Trump's conversation with Putin, apparently, is not Ukraine. I mean, they do obviously talk a lot about Ukraine, and it does take up a lot of time. But they also are bringing up the position of the dollar and the status of the dollar. And that the Americans have, at least this administration, has grasped the damage to the

position of the dollar, that the Biden administration, and ultimately before that, the Obama administration, have done that, you know, this endless war of sanctions, this attempt to use the dollar as an instrument of economic war, has actually incentivized various countries to actually start moving away from the dollar. And that ultimately, what Riggs is all about is about creating trade mechanisms so that countries like Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, all of them can trade with each other and somehow prove themselves against this constant battle of sanctions and dollar weaponization, which the Americans have been wielding. And I think this is, to some extent, concern the Americans.

And I think the reason that it's concerned the Americans is not so much because Trump and his people are worried that America is losing its ability to sanction countries around the world, which it is, by the way. Rubio has said that in five years' time, sanctions will become completely meaningless because of the changes in the world financial system. And he's probably right about that. I think what's worrying the Trump people is that they want to achieve a major economic transition in the United States. They want to start moving the United States back towards some type of process of re-industrialization. Apparently, there are plans, and they focus very much on robotics and AI and that kind of thing, which I'm not going to discuss because it's far outside my own. you know, level of knowledge. But in order to make that transition happen, the United States still needs investment flows into the United States. It still needs outside countries to put

outsiders, foreigners and foreign countries to put their money in the United States, to buy American treasury bonds, to do all of those sort of things. At least, for the next four, five, ten years until this transition process is completed. And the Trump people understand that what the Biden people were doing was a sort of gamble on winning the geopolitical battle quickly enough to avert problems from, you know, problems caused by the reduction in the position of the dollar, the loss, potential loss of the dollar's reserve currency status. The Trump people understand that that gamble has been lost other the priority therefore, in order to preserve the internal economic stability in the United

States is on the contrary to try and calm down the geopolitical situation. So as to preserve the reserve currency status of the dollar. So you see the change, the Biden people trying to use the dollar while it has the reserve currency position to affect geopolitical change, the Trump people trying to calm down geopolitical conflict. On the contrary, in order to preserve the position of the dollar, at least for a while, the Biden people focused on hegemony geopolitics, the Trump people much more focused on economics, on the internal situation within the United States.

And this is not, as I said, something that one is just hearing rumors about. American officials have been making quite straightforward statements about this, including Trump himself. How does Russia or the other countries of Bricks, the entire global South actually, how do they trust the United States and the USD after the weaponization of the dollar and all of the sanctions, especially all the sanctions placed on Russia? They don't trust. How do you build that trust again? They don't trust the USDA and they don't trust the US about this. They will press forward with their processes of de-dollarization.

I mean, I don't think this is now something that is negotiable. The Russians have pointed out to the Americans, look, we didn't decide to dump the dollar. You drove us out of it. It was your decision to do this. This is what previously Obama and then Biden did. So, you know, we're not going to be fools and let ourselves get into that mess again. And, of course, the Chinese are saying the same, and they got even more of an incentive to do. But what the BRICs countries can say to the Americans is that, look, if you're talking about this as a transition process, if you only want to keep the dollar's position as a reserve currency going for five to ten years, well, you really don't have a problem because at the moment we are not setting up an alternative reserve currency because we can't, we want to secure our own position.

And obviously, we're going to set up our own trading systems. And obviously, we're going to try and work around any weaponization that you might have in mind. But at least for the next five, probably 10 years, the dollar will still have reserve currency status. And financial flows into the United States will therefore continue. So I think that's what the Russians are probably telling the Americans are probably telling the American. Americans at the moment. And perhaps not all BRIC states agree to the same extent. I think with the Russians, it's important to remember that the Russians have an essentially self-sufficient economy. They produce their own food. They're self-sufficient in energy. They trade ultimately on their own

terms, they will always be able, or so they believe, to cut bilateral deals with countries in order to keep trade flows going. They're doing that with India at the moment. They're doing that with Indonesia. They're doing it with others. So they actually have, in some respects, a less pressing need for a reserve currency than some of the other BRIC states do. for them, provided countries are able to trade in their own currencies and do that sort of thing,

well, the dollar can just go on doing what it wants. Other BRIC states like Brazil and Lula has been very outspoken about this, they probably do want to move towards setting up an alternative BRICS currency. And they're talking about this because for them, diversifying their economies is a more pressing issue. Setting up alternative trade flows is a more pressing issue. And they have an even more pressing desire at the moment to escape the shadow of the United States.

But even then, even people like Lula probably recognize that this is going to take some time. Doesn't the compromise come about when the United States understands that or is convinced by Russia, by bricks, that the dollar will remain the reserve currency for the next five to ten years? Yeah. After that, digital currencies will come to the forefront and that will be the way things are transacted. I mean, an evolutionary, a gradual, well, a 10-year process, if you want to call it gradual, but an evolutionary process where the dollar remains is the reserve currency, but there's no currency that takes over after the dollar. We just kind of shift towards a digital blockchain type of currency that then handles

whatever transactions need to be handled. Absolutely. And I think the Russians can point out that if you go and work through all of the agreements that were reached in Kazan, which we did at the time, if you remember, the brick summit in Kazan, which took place in October. That was the way forward. It was not about setting up an alternative reserve currency. It's about understanding the fact that the world of reserve currencies, you know, the Spanish silver pezzal in the 18th century, the British gold sovereign, the sterling in the 19th century, the USD,

in the 20th century, that that world is ending, that we're looking at a completely different settlement and financial system, one which the United States ultimately can join. And apparently that's been said privately to the Americans, that obviously it's not really appropriate for you to join now because all this is still in the making. But, you know, when it's all sorted and when you're ready, you know, please come in. We'd be happy to have you with us. You know, that's some years away. It's quite a few years away.

We're not looking to wage economic war on you for the moment, even though you waged economic war on us. Because we're not in a position to do it. Yeah, but stop weaponizing your currency as well, yeah. Stop weaponizing your currency. Bring things back to normal because the more you weaponize your currency, the more these evolutionary trends that we've been talking about will accelerate because people will feel pressed to do it because they're under pressure. And countries like Saudi Arabia, which are happy to use the dollar at the moment, might

eventually decide decisively, not just to join the bricks, but maybe to back a reserve currency in the way that some people were speculating they would do a year or so ago when Joe Biden was still at the White House. All right. We will end the video there. The durand. Dotlocos.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitchie, Telegram, Rockfeiting, X. Go to Durand Shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. The link is in the description box down below. Take care.