Euro Fails to Replace Dollar, Gap Widens
Recently, Swift system data indicates that the proportion of dollar payments has not decreased but increased, reaching an all-time high of over 46%. This means that within the SWIFT system, the proportion of settlements made in US dollars is almost more than the sum of all other currencies. As the second largest global currency, the euro's share has been generally declining rather than increasing over the past year and has now almost broken through the 30% threshold. The worst part is that the euro once wanted to challenge the status of the US dollar, but now it finds itself increasingly distant from the US dollar. The United States has once again employed its usual strategy, specifically targeting the second position that poses the greatest threat to the United States. Since the euro has threatened the status of the US dollar, the United States naturally has to settle accounts, but this time it is not an overt conspiracy but a covert one.
01
The euro has only been established for a short period of over 20 years, but the achievements it has made are astonishing. In fact, during the 1980s and 1990s, European countries increasingly realized that with the continuous strengthening of US dollar hegemony, if they could only use the US dollar in trade, they would have to pay the United States a very large amount of US dollar tax. The best solution would be to completely abandon the US dollar in trade, but it is obviously not feasible to de-dollarize on a global scale. For Europe, establishing the Eurozone and using a unified euro for trade within it is a viable approach. After going through countless hardships, Europe finally withstood the pressure from the United States and introduced its own unified currency, the euro.Due to the fact that the economies of European countries are all quite strong, with an overall level ranking among the top three at the time, and the trade volume between countries is also very large, when each country gradually abandoned its original currency and uniformly used the euro, the euro immediately showed a strong offensive.
Advertisement
Soon, the euro became the second most used currency in global payments, and the share it obtained was taken from the US dollar.
Another piece of data also shows the threat of the euro to the US dollar. More than 20 years ago, the proportion of the US dollar in the reserves of central banks of various countries was 20 percentage points higher than it is now, and the current reserve proportion of the euro is exactly 20%. The US reduced by 20 points, and the euro grew from zero to 20, again taking away a share from the US dollar.
In the face of this situation, the US dollar, of course, cannot be taken lightly.
02
The suppression against the euro has already begun.
A few years ago, the UK left the EU, that is to say, the UK, which has always maintained its own currency, the pound, finally gave up its status in the eurozone.
This is not only a contradiction between the UK and the euro, but it is also very obvious that there is the shadow of the US dollar behind it. Successfully making the UK leave the eurozone means that this move is feasible, and in the future, the US may try to divide the eurozone.
However, the bigger move only started last year, that is, by taking advantage of the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the US quickly promoted the Swift system and excluded Russia.
Since there is a lot of trade between Russia and Europe, and almost all of it is settled in euros, after this sanction began, these trades settled in euros suddenly disappeared, that is to say, those that should have been settled in euros no longer exist.Looking back at the data published monthly by the SWIFT system, it is observed that since then, the proportion of Euro payments has been continuously decreasing, while the proportion of the United States has been continuously increasing. While verbally calling for sanctions against Russia, the United States' conspiracy is secretly to sanction the Euro. The United States has played a set of combination punches, which also includes at least two other aspects.
On one hand, the United States continuously raises the interest rate of the US dollar, thereby raising the exchange rate of the US dollar and suppressing the exchange rate of the Euro. As the Euro becomes less valuable, the probability of using and holding Euros will naturally become lower and lower.
On the other hand, the United States continuously exports inflation to Europe. When the inflation in the United States begins to decline, Europe remains at a high level. This also leads to many European companies having to choose to move to the United States in order to reduce the impact of inflation and energy crises. This results in another large amount of trade no longer being settled in Euros.
However, this does not mean that the United States has monopolized all the benefits. In fact, if we only look at the data of the SWIFT system, we can also see the impact of global de-dollarization.
Although the proportion of the US dollar has increased, this is only within this settlement system. Due to countries such as Russia and Iran being kicked out of this system, the trade involving these countries is not included in the statistics.
More importantly, Russia has used its own case to declare to the world that not using the US dollar for trade will not be affected. Oil and natural gas are still exported as usual, and food is still a commodity that everyone needs.Russia's economy, after a period of stagnation, has now shown positive growth. It is currently forecasted to grow by at least 2% for the entire year, with the growth rate in the second quarter of this year having increased from 3% to 5%.
The current unemployment rate in Russia is the lowest in recent years, and the current inflation rate is far lower than that of several major European countries.
People suddenly realized the significant benefits of not using the US dollar. Consequently, the Asian Clearing Union held a meeting and decided to start using a new internal settlement system to replace the SWIFT system.
The BRICS countries also held a summit to explore further the use of their own currencies for trade within the group and to gradually establish a new settlement system to replace the SWIFT system.
China's CIPS system has been operating maturely for many years, with an increasing number of connected countries and banks, also showing the advantage of gradual replacement.
In this situation, the proportion of the US dollar in the SWIFT system has increased, but it has decreased globally.
Leave A Comment