各国がひそかに米ドルを放棄している理由
For the past 80 years, one currency has quietly ruled the world. Not by force, but by design. From the ashes of World War II came the bread-onwood system, and at the heart of it, the US dollar. Even when the gold peg collapsed in 1971, the dollar didn’t fall. It only grew stronger. Oil was priced in it. Reserves were stocked with it, and entire nations settled their debts in it. But today, that dominance may be slipping. Not through a crash, but through a slow, deliberate drift. From sanctions fatigue to digital currencies. From brrics cooperation to the rise of China, there is a quiet but powerful movement underway. One that seeks to chip away at the dollar’s central role. Is the world ready for a postdoll era? [Music] To understand how the dollar’s grip may be fading, we first need to understand why it became so powerful in the first place. It began in 1944 in a small town in New Hampshire. At the Breton Woods Conference, 44 nations agreed to anchor their currencies to the US dollar, which in turn was backed by gold. This made the US dollar the cornerstone of the postwar financial order. America with half the world’s gold and unrivaled industrial output was seen as the safest place to store value. Then in 1971, everything changed. President Richard Nixon shocked the world by closing the gold window, ending convertability of the dollar to gold. The dollar should have collapsed, but it didn’t. Instead, it evolved. In the 1970s, the US struck a deal with Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations to price oil exclusively in dollars. This was the birth of the petro dollar system. From there, dollar dominance only deepened. By 2024, over 54% of global trade invoices were in dollars. Oil, wheat, copper, semiconductors, nearly every globally traded good is still priced in USD. But it wasn’t just trade. Today, over 58% of official global foreign exchange reserves are held in dollars. That’s down from 72% in 2001, but still more than double the euro and over 10 times the share of the UN. And then there’s the US Treasury market. Foreign investors hold roughly $9 trillion in US government debt, about 1/3 of all outstanding treasuries. Why? Because no other market offers the same depth, liquidity, and legal security. This is the exorbitant privilege of the United States, the ability to borrow cheaply, enforce sanctions globally, and absorb capital inflows simply because the world needs dollars. But here’s the catch. What made the dollar untouchable is also what makes its fall so consequential. And now that untouchability is facing its first real test in decades. For decades, the dollar didn’t just dominate global finance. It dominated global power. Because controlling the dollar means controlling who gets to use it through mechanisms like Swift and dollar denominated clearing houses, the US has been able to impose financial sanctions that reach far beyond its borders. But in 2022, something changed. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and its allies froze over $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves, essentially cutting Russia off from the global dollar system. To Washington, it was a powerful message. To the rest of the world, it was a warning. If the dollar could be used as a weapon once, it could be used again. Even US Treasury Secretary Janet Yelen acknowledged the growing concern. overusing sanctions could undermine long-term trust in the dollar system. And that’s exactly what began to happen. Countries like India, China, and the UAE began seeking new trade channels with Russia without the dollar. In July 2023, India and the UAE executed their first oil deal in rupees, bypassing the dollar completely. At the same time, Russian firms increased usage of the Chinese UN, which now accounts for over 23% of Russia’s imports, up from just 4% in early 2022. Suddenly, nations weren’t just talking about alternatives. They were building them. New financial channels, new trade settlement systems, new reserves. What was once unthinkable is now becoming strategy. The more the dollar is weaponized, the more the world looks for ways to live without it. No country has been more determined or more strategic about breaking free from dollar dominance than China. It’s not about destroying the dollar overnight. It’s about creating enough alternatives that the dollar is no longer the only option. Since the early 2010s, China has quietly pushed for what it calls R&B internationalization, the expansion of the UAN’s role in global trade and finance. Step one, currency swap lines. By 2025, China had signed over 30 bilateral swap agreements, including major ones with Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, enabling countries to trade directly using UN, bypassing the dollar. Step two, payment systems. After the US cut Russia off from Swift, China accelerated the expansion of its own crossber system, CIP, the crossber interbank payment system. CIP now connects over 160 banks across 60 plus countries and handles tens of billions in daily transactions. Still smaller than Swift, but growing fast. Step three, the digital UN. In 2024, Hong Kong launched crossber ECNY wallets, enabling 24/7 digital payments between China and the rest of the world. Behind the scenes, Project Mbridge, a partnership between China, the UAE, Thailand, and the BIS tested blockchainbased digital payments totaling over $22 million in just 6 weeks. Meanwhile, China is using its influence in commodity markets to push for UAN settled trade. In 2023, China bought LNG from the UAE in UAN. And in the Gulf, Beijing signed a $6.98 billion currency swap deal with Saudi Arabia, who has publicly entertained pricing oil in Yuan. Then there’s the Russia connection. By 2024, 95% of China Russia trade was settled in local currencies. Dollars are no longer needed between two of the world’s largest energy producers and consumers. Still, challenges remain. Despite the headlines, the UN makes up just 2.5 to 3% of global reserves. Capital controls in China make it hard for foreign investors to freely enter or exit markets. And trust in the legal system so critical to currency credibility is not yet global. But China doesn’t need to replace the dollar outright. It just needs to build enough alternatives that the world has a choice. [Music] As pressure builds on the dollar, an unlikely coalition is stepping into the void. The BRICS group, now joined by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran, is openly challenging dollar supremacy. and they’re not subtle about it. Brazil’s president Lula de Silva has repeatedly called on emerging markets to trade in our own currencies instead of relying on the dollar. The new development bank, often called the BRICS bank, is now lending in local currencies, not just dollars or euros. And the BRICS pay system is under development, aiming to link national payment platforms into a single interoperable network. There’s even talk of a common bricks currency perhaps backed by a basket of gold and commodities, but for now that’s more dream than reality. The challenges of trust, governance, and valuation are immense. Still, the trend is real. Saudi Arabia and the UAE joined bricks in 2024. Both signed currency swap lines with China. Both are exploring oil pricing mechanisms beyond the dollar. The bricks block may not replace the dollar, but it’s already replacing the need for it one bilateral trade deal at a time. If the dollar’s dominance fades, what replaces it? There’s no single answer, but several contenders are lining up. First, there’s the euro, which accounts for about 20% of global foreign exchange reserves. But the euro has limitations. It’s backed by a monetary union, not a fiscal one. Germany and Greece don’t share the same debt dynamics, so trust in the euro’s long-term stability remains fragmented. Next is gold, the original store of value. In 2024 alone, central banks added over 1,045 tons of gold to their reserves, marking the third straight year of record buying. China, India, and Russia were among the biggest buyers. Gold now represents more than 23% of some nations reserve compositions compared to less than 10% in 2015. Then there’s the SDR or special drawing right a synthetic currency created by the IMF. It’s made up of a basket of currencies. The dollar, euro, yuan, yen, and pound. The idea of using SDRs as a global reserve unit has floated around for decades, but it lacks political traction and remains largely symbolic. Which brings us to the wild card digital currencies. China’s digital yuan or ECNY is being tested in crossber payments linked to Hong Kong’s faster payment system and embedded in project Mbridge a multic BDC platform backed by the BIS China UAE and Thailand. The goal realtime crossber trade without touching the dollar or swift. Then there’s crypto. While Bitcoin and Ethereum grab headlines, their volatility makes them unsuitable for global reserves. Even stable coins like USDT and USDC are ironically pegged to the dollar, reinforcing its dominance in digital form. So, what does the future look like? Not a new king replacing the dollar, but a fragmented world of coexisting systems. euros and yuan for trade, gold as a hedge, digital tokens as infrastructure, and yes, the dollar still powerful, but no longer inevitable. [Music] If you’re expecting a dramatic collapse of the US dollar, don’t hold your breath. That’s not how reserve currencies die. They erode slowly, quietly, and systemically. Over the last two decades, the dollar’s share of global reserves has declined by more than 12 percentage points. But some experts believe the true decline is steeper because many central banks are now offloading dollars quietly, swapping them for gold, yuan, or euros through offmarket deals not immediately reflected in IMF statistics. This is what some economists call stealth erosion. And yet the dollar still dominates. No other currency offers the same depth, liquidity, and global reach. There’s no true successor. But there doesn’t need to be because what we’re witnessing is not replacement. It’s diversification. Foreign holdings of US treasuries have also fallen from nearly 50% in 2014 to just around 33% in 2024. This matters. If fewer countries hold dollars and treasuries, the US will have to borrow at higher rates, weakening its fiscal flexibility, its ability to enforce sanctions, fund global ventures, and shape financial norms will all diminish. And new financial flows will emerge through China’s CIP, BRICS, pay systems, and bilateral currency corridors across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The decline of the dollar isn’t loud.
For 80 years, the U.S. dollar has been the world’s reserve currency, powering global trade and giving America unprecedented financial influence. But that era may be quietly coming to an end.
In this documentary, we explore how U.S. sanctions, the rise of BRICS, China’s digital yuan, growing gold reserves, and new global payment systems are chipping away at dollar dominance.
📉 Why is global trust in the dollar eroding?
🌍 What are countries doing to escape its grip?
💱 Could a multipolar currency world reshape the global economy?
From Bretton Woods to BRICS, this is the full story of the dollar’s rise—and its possible decline.
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