{"id":120231,"date":"2019-04-05T08:08:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T12:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=120231"},"modified":"2019-04-05T08:08:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T12:08:08","slug":"reign-of-the-almighty-dollar-threatened-as-petrodollar-crashes-and-burns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=120231","title":{"rendered":"Reign of the Almighty Dollar Threatened as Petrodollar Crashes and Burns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudis Threaten To Ditch Petrodollar As \u201cNuclear Option\u201d To Block NOPEC Bill<\/h2>\n

ZeroHedge.com<\/p>\n

Three year ago<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 almost to the day \u2013 Saudi Arabia rattled its first sabre towards the United States, with an\u00a0implicit threat to dump US Treasuries<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0over Congress\u2019 decision to allow the Saudis to be held responsible for the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

In a stunning\u00a0report at the time by the NYTimes<\/a>,\u00a0 Saudi Arabia told the Obama administration and members of Congress\u00a0that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars\u2019 worth of American assets held by the kingdom\u00a0if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then,\u00a0six months ago<\/strong><\/a><\/u>, the Saudis once again threatened to weaponize their wealth as\u00a0the biggest importer of arms from America in the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Infographic:<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

You will find more infographics at\u00a0Statista<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n

And now<\/strong><\/u>,\u00a0Reuters\u00a0<\/a>reports, citing three unidentified people familiar with Saudi energy policy,\u00a0Saudi Arabia is threatening to drop the dollar as its main currency in selling its oil if the U.S. passes a bill that exposes OPEC members to U.S. antitrust lawsuits<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While the death of the petrodollar has long been predicted (as the petroyuan gathers momentum), this is the most direct threat yet to the USDollar\u2019s exorbitant privilege\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saudis know they have the dollar as the nuclear option,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>one of the sources familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saudis say: let the Americans pass NOPEC and it would be the U.S. economy that would fall apart,\u201d<\/strong>another source said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Riyadh reportedly communicated the threat to senior U.S. energy officials<\/strong>, one person briefed on Saudi oil policy told Reuters<\/p>\n

As Reuters details,<\/a>\u00a0NOPEC, or the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, was first introduced in 2000 and aims to remove sovereign immunity from U.S. antitrust law, paving the way for OPEC states to be sued for curbing output in a bid to raise oil prices.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the bill has never made it into law despite numerous attempts, the legislation has gained momentum since U.S. President Donald Trump came to office. Trump said he backed NOPEC in a book published in 2011 before he was elected, though he not has not voiced support for NOPEC as president.<\/p>\n

Trump has instead stressed the importance of U.S-Saudi relations, including sales of U.S. military equipment, even after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.<\/p>\n

A move by Saudi Arabia to ditch the dollar would resonate well with big non-OPEC oil producers such as Russia as well as major consumers China and the European Union, which have been calling for moves to diversify global trade away from the dollar to dilute U.S. influence over the world economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russia, which is subject to U.S. sanctions, has tried to sell oil in euros and China\u2019s yuan but the proportion of its sales in those currencies is not significant.<\/p>\n

Venezuela and Iran, which are also under U.S. sanctions, sell most of their oil in other currencies but they have done little to challenge the dollar\u2019s hegemony in the oil market.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, if a long-standing U.S. ally such as Saudi Arabia joined the club of non-dollar oil sellers it would be a far more significant move likely to gain traction within the industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps this\u00a0explains why Russia has been dumping dollars in favors of gold in recent months<\/strong><\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/picture>\"Russia\"<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And why China suddenly admitted to increased gold reserves\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/picture>\"\"<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n

And why there has been a spike in yuan buying by reserve managers last year, as the IMF pointed out in a recent report.<\/p>\n

<\/picture>\"Reserves\"<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n

So the next time you hear an analyst on CNBC categorically dismiss the notion that the loss of the dollar\u2019s reserve currency status isn\u2019t something that markets should take seriously (even as\u00a0several credible<\/a>\u00a0voices<\/a>\u00a0have warned that it should be), you\u2019d do well to remember this chart.<\/p>\n

<\/picture>\"Reserves\"<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n

Nothing lasts forever.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-04-04\/petrodollar-panic-saudis-threaten-dump-usd-oil-trades-over-opec-anti-trust-bill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudis Threaten To Ditch Petrodollar As \u201cNuclear Option\u201d To Block NOPEC Bill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}