O futuro do dólar , o futuro do Império , o futuro da humanidade

 A força do dólar é ainda muito elevada . O uso cada vez maior e descarado , da força militar - Venezuela..-e do mercado interno , pelas tarefas pode intimidar muitos países , garantir vassalagem , mas impulsiona também a repulsa do Império , o seu desmascaramento aos olhos das massas e mostra também o medo e o desespero dos EUA perante as ameaças reais aos privilégios do dólar e a sua perda de influência .Uma crise , financeira ou não financeira , poderia ter consequências catastróficas para o dólar . O que trava o Império é que este deixou de ter a supremacia militar e tem de contar com Federação Russa e , no plano económico , tem de contar com a China de quem é hoje dependente em muitas áreas decisivas . A humanidade caminha no fio da navalha

O comércio de desvalorização cambial e o futuro do dólar . Michael Roberts

O preço do ouro em relação ao dólar americano voltou a ultrapassar os US$ 5.000 por onça, após a recente e acentuada contração da semana passada. A alta sem precedentes no preço do ouro, particularmente desde o início do segundo mandato de Trump, há um ano, é resultado do que vem sendo chamado de "comércio de desvalorização". Esse comércio significa que instituições financeiras, tanto públicas quanto privadas, estão aparentemente se desfazendo de ativos financeiros americanos, ou seja, dinheiro em dólares e títulos da dívida em dólares, em particular. Por quê? Parece que investidores e especuladores financeiros, tanto estrangeiros quanto americanos, temem que o valor em dólares dos ativos que possuem caia. Por quê? Por diversos motivos. 

Primeiramente, embora Trump afirme que a inflação está caindo rapidamente, as evidências apontam para o contrário. A inflação de preços ao consumidor nos EUA ainda é oficialmente "rígida" e permanece acima da meta oficial do Federal Reserve de 2% ao ano. Além disso, como demonstramos em publicações anteriores, a taxa oficial subestima em até 2 pontos percentuais a taxa real de inflação . Mesmo assim, Trump continua exigindo que o Federal Reserve reduza sua taxa básica de juros e pretende substituir o atual presidente do Fed, Jay Powell, por alguém (Kevin Warsh) que atenda aos seus desejos. Inflação mais alta, juntamente com taxas de juros mais baixas, é a receita perfeita para que os investidores se desfaçam de ativos em dólar. A taxa de juros real (após a inflação) obtida com ativos em dólar cairá ainda mais.

Outro indicador fundamental é o diferencial entre a taxa de juros recebida pelo dólar em comparação com a recebida por outras moedas, principalmente o euro e o iene. Investidores financeiros acreditam cada vez mais que as taxas de juros nos EUA cairão mais do que em outras grandes economias no próximo ano. O Banco da Inglaterra e o Banco Central Europeu não têm pressa em reduzir ainda mais suas taxas – como acabaram de anunciar em suas reuniões de hoje –, enquanto o Banco do Japão deve aumentar sua taxa para sustentar o iene. Portanto, o diferencial de juros "a termo" (ou seja, a previsão de mercado) para o dólar em comparação com outras moedas vem diminuindo.

The Trump factor is also playing a role in the dollar’s recent demise and thus the debasement trade.  His unpredictability, his bullying tactics with other countries, is increasingly forcing foreign holders of dollar assets ie companies investing into the US; financial institutions holding US stocks and bonds; and central banks with large holdings of US short-term assets (cash and treasury bills) to diversify into other currencies – or into gold.  Indeed, gold, that ‘barbaric relic’ of the past monetary system, has now become the ‘safe haven’ asset to hold in the place of the dollar, and for that matter other major ‘fiat’ currencies like the euro, sterling or the yen.

In the past, whenever there was a financial crisis or a major political conflict, investors would pile into dollar assets, driving the dollar up – as happened during the 2008 financial crisis. That hasn’t happened under Trump; the dollar index has fallen 10% against other currencies in 2025. This time, the debasement trade has emerged.

The dollar, as the world’s major currency for central bank reserves and in transactions in international trade and finance, has been in gradual decline for decades.  US imperialism has been the dominant power globally since 1945.  That dominance has depended on four factors: industrial superiority; technological superiority; financial superiority and military prowess.  The US was the major manufacturing economy in the 1950s and 1960s, but it gradually lost that position to rising European and then Japanese manufacturing. The litmus test was when the US trade surpluses with other nations turned into deficits, which has continued ever since.  Then the US then began to leak dollars globally, not only through outward investment, but also through an excess of spending on imports over exports as domestic manufacturers lost ground to foreign competition. 

Under the old fixed dollar-gold standard, dollar imbalances in trade and capital flows had to be settled by transfers of gold bullion. Up until 1953, as war reconstruction took place, the US actually gained gold of 12 million troy ounces, while Europe and Japan lost 35 million troy oz (in order to finance their recovery). But after that, the US started to leak gold to Europe and Japan.  By end-1965, the latter surpassed the former for the first time in the post-war period in terms of gold volumes held in reserve.  As a result, Europe and Japan began to pile up huge reserves that they could use to buy US assets.  In the early 1970s, the US administration under Nixon came off the gold standard and let the dollar float. The global economy had begun to reverse against the US.

The US became reliant for the first time since the 1890s on external finance for the purposes of spending at home and abroad.  Now US external accounts were driven less by goods and services and more by global demand for US financial assets and the liquidity they provided. 

In the 21^st century, particularly after the global slump of 2008, US industry also began to lose its superiority in high value-added technology based industries. Yes, it has the Magnificent Seven tech giants and it is driving forward the AI boom, but China and east Asia started to lead in many key technology-based sectors. Increasingly, their trade surpluses with the US are less with basic manufactured consumer goods and more with high-tech products.

However, until now the US has comfortably remained the dominant financial power in the world.  Normally, if a country’s current account is permanently in deficit and it depends increasingly on foreign funds, its currency is vulnerable to sharp depreciation.  This is the experience of just about every country in the world, from Argentina to Turkey to Zambia, and even the UK.  But it is not the same for the US because the dollar is still the main currency internationally.  Roughly 90% of global foreign exchange transactions involve a dollar leg; approximately 40% of global trade outside the US is invoiced and settled in dollars; and almost 60% of US dollar banknotes circulate internationally as a global store of value and medium of exchange.  Around 50% of global foreign exchange reserves held by foreign central banks and monetary authorities remain denominated in dollars. And only the US treasury can ‘print’ dollars, gaining a profit from what is called ‘seignorage’ as a result. So, despite the relative economic decline of US imperialism industrially, the US dollar maintains its ‘extraordinary privilege’.

Even so, the underlying decline in US industrial power has weakened the dollar over decades – indeed this is what Trump sees as needing to be reversed.  He wants to ‘Make America Great Again’ by restoring its industrial hegemony; and his weapons are tariff hikes and bombastic blustering threats.

Increasingly, he is resorting to  the last major component of US imperialist hegemony, its military power.  Gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela and Iran are just the latest episodes in that approach.

Trump’s plan to restore American industrial superiority with tariffs and bombs will not succeed.  The relative decline of US industry will not be reversed.  But what about that financial decline?  We can see what is happening there if we look at the net international investment position (NIIP) of the US economy.  This measures the amount of foreign assets held by US institutions against the amount of US assets held by foreign institutions, ie the net position of US foreign assets and liabilities.  What are these assets and liabilities?  They are the outstanding direct investments held; outstanding holdings of stocks (equities) and bonds; and holdings of cash and short-term securities.

This is how the US NIIP looks. 

This net negative balance of assets and liabilities is equivalent to 79% of US GDP. As you can see, the negative NIIP has steadily widened. It means that foreigners increasingly hold more investments, shares, bonds and cash in the US economy than American institutions do of foreigners’ assets. As we have seen above, the reason for that is that the US has run trade and current account deficits every year since the 1970s and those deficits have been covered by foreigners keeping their trade surpluses with the US and other countries in US dollar assets; and also by investing in the US economy.

But that gap between liabilities and assets has been growing.  Why?  It is not because foreigners are investing in US industry so much. It’s true that net FDI investment by foreigners into the US has increased sharply since the mid-2010s, now reaching nearly $7trn in investment stock. But the major part of foreign holdings of dollar assets is in what are called portfolio investments: ie bonds and stocks (shares).

Foreigners now hold US government and corporate bonds of over $15trn and (net) near $12trn, or over 40% of the NIIP.  Foreign institutions have usually held their US dollar assets in ‘safe’ US government bonds, while foreign central banks have held most of their reserves in dollar deposits or short-term treasury bills. But there has been a recent and significant change in the composition of the US NIIP. 

Rather than use their surplus US dollars to buy US bonds, foreigners have increasingly bought US stocks. The US stock market boom, particularly since the end of the pandemic slump in 2020, encouraged massive foreign investment in the US stock market.  US institutions used to purchase more foreign stocks than foreigners held US stocks.  But by the end of 2025, foreigners held US equities worth $21trn, or net $6.5trn, more than their investments in US industry and more than their holdings in bonds – a massive switch. Now it seems that the US dollar’s value is increasingly dependent on foreigners holding US corporate stocks rather than US government debt.  And that is risky for the dollar.  If the AI bubble were to burst and the US stock market plunge, the value of foreign equity holdings would also dive and lead to a switch out of these dollar assets.  So the dollar would take a further plunge.

Does this mean that dollar imperialism is over and the US dollar will now submerge globally to be replaced by alternative currencies, say from the BRICS economies, in a new multi-polar world?  This is the theme of many radical economists and leftists. In my view, this is overdone. Let me explain.

For a start, there is no real alternatve to the US dollar in world markets. The euro cannot replace it and whatever the talk about a ‘BRICS currency’ (which does not exist); or the dollar’s replacement by the Chinese renminbi, that is wishful thinking based on the idea that the BRICS (let alone BRICS+) are really a united grouping resistant to US imperialism; or that China wants to end capital controls on its financial flows and so let the renminbi face the vagaries of world financial flows.

Second, the share of dollars in central bank reserves has fallen, but it’s still 50% of all CB reserves and no other currency or gold is anywhere near matching that share. Moreover, in foreign exchange markets, dollars are used in nearly 90% of all trades. Yes, there are increased direct trade exchanges between renminbi and rubles, and even Saudi riyals and renminbi, but the size of these exchanges is negligible compared to the bilateral trades between dollars and all other currencies.

Then there is the foreign exchange swap market. International financial institutions are continually ‘hedging’ against currency exchange movements to try and protect the value of their holdings. They swap currencies to do so – and this huge market ($100trn) is conducted also most solely in dollars (90%).  

As instituições não estão trocando dólares por euros, ienes ou renminbi, mas sim por ouro. No entanto, o ouro não tem a menor chance de substituir o dólar nos fluxos financeiros globais. Muito menos as criptomoedas. Aos preços atuais, o valor das reservas mundiais  de ouro acima do solo  gira em torno de US$ 36 trilhões, mais de uma dúzia de vezes o valor combinado de todas  as criptomoedas , mas representa apenas 30% do PIB global e menos de 10% da dívida global.

Portanto, o componente financeiro da hegemonia imperialista dos EUA permanecerá por algum tempo. Sim, o dólar pode muito bem cair ainda mais este ano devido à estagflação da economia americana; ao estouro da bolha da inteligência artificial e à provável redução adicional das taxas de juros americanas em relação a outras taxas nacionais; além das birras de Trump. Mas, embora o dólar americano possa ter se desvalorizado no último ano, ele ainda é historicamente muito forte. Dados do Federal Reserve mostram que o valor real do dólar ainda está quase dois desvios padrão acima de sua média desde o início da era do câmbio flutuante em 1973.

Assim, o "privilégio extraordinário" do dólar, que já dura muitos anos, não vai acabar tão cedo, apesar das recentes negociações de "desvalorização" da moeda.