De-dollarization will continue

https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-dollars-dominance-is-declining-in-the-middle-east/a-65662358

In Iraq, US authorities had been making it harder to get dollars into the country — they were apparently worried that too much American cash was being smuggled to the neighboring Iranian government, which is under sanctions, but is tacitly supported by many Iraqi politicians. This shortage of dollars has led to volatility in the value of the Iraqi dinar, which is pegged to the US currency.

This volatility brought about last weekend’s ban. In February, also thanks partially to the US currency crunch, Iraq said it would do business with China using the yuan instead of dollars.

The experts that DW spoke with all agreed there are likely two major reasons for Middle Easterners’ threats to use other currencies.

Firstly, they said, it has to do with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Sanctions are a very significant part of the debate, McDowell thinks. His new book, “Bucking the Buck: US Financial Sanctions and the International Backlash Against the Dollar,” says as much, arguing “that the more the US wields the dollar as a weapon of foreign policy, the more its adversaries will move their international economic activities into other currencies.”