Saudi Arabia wants to kill the petrodollar - economist

Published time: 16 Nov, 2017 13:42



Saudi Arabia's King Salman welcomes Trump to dance with a sword during a welcome ceremony at Al Murabba Palace in Riyadh © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

The United States and Saudi Arabia are so interdependent that a rift would mean disaster for the petrodollar system and the greenback’s reserve currency status, warns economist Brandon Smith. He is sure Riyadh is planning to ditch the dollar.

“I believe the next phase of the global economic reset will begin in part with the breaking of petrodollar dominance. An important element of my analysis on the strategic shift away from the petrodollar has been the symbiosis between the US and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been the single most important key to the dollar remaining as the petrocurrency from the very beginning,” Smith wrote in an article for his website Alt-market.com.

The site claims its goal is to “facilitate barter networking and the exchange of knowledge and ideas for thriving in a faltering monetary environment.”

According to the economist, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has been seeking ways of cutting dependence on the US dollar. Smith says the country’s Vision 2030 program may be not about reducing oil’s share in the economy, but killing the petrodollar.

“Prince Mohammed's revolutionary "Vision for 2030" developed as he entered power was touted as a means to end Saudi reliance on oil revenues to support economic stability. However, I believe this plan is NOT about ending reliance on oil, but ending reliance on the US dollar. In fact, the plan indicates a move away from the dollar as the world's petrocurrency and a de-pegging of the riyal from the dollar,” he wrote.

A 1974 agreement between US President Richard Nixon and Saudi King Faisal meant Riyadh has been accepting dollars for all its oil exports.

“Prince Mohammed has also established much deeper ties to Russia and China, creating bilateral agreements which may end up removing the dollar as the mechanism for oil trade between the nations,” Smith added.

Source: RT