Retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Blaine Holt told Newsmax Sunday that the nation’s economy faces a grave threat if Russia and China implement trade with their own gold-backed currency.
This, he warned, could mean that U.S. dollars would no longer be the world’s primary reserve.
The former deputy military representative to NATO, speaking on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America,” asserted that the crises and wars are obscuring this “number-one issue.” Our lives would change quickly, Holt said, if the dollar loses its status as the world’s reserve currency.
There is an alarming fear among experts that Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are preparing to do exactly that. China has stepped up gold purchases and recently acquired 80.1 tons of the precious metal valued at $4.6 billion.
As Holt declared, “Americans need to wake up and start educating themselves about this or they’re going to be educated, whether they want to or not.”
He added that Russia’s “top-line goal” is to enact such a move, which would make the U.S. dollar “worthless.”
🇷🇺🇨🇳 China and Russia are now the largest savers of gold. The central banks of the two countries are buying gold at the fastest pace since 1967.
The main message is that Russia and China no longer want to rely on the US dollar as their main reserve asset. pic.twitter.com/VwszyAY4pv
— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) December 31, 2022
Russia is on a path to becoming a “client state of China,” and their goals are in line with each other, Holt told Newsmax. In addition, the World Economic Forum and China are “formidable allies.”
Some experts, while admitting the possibility of such an effort by Russia and China, insist that actually achieving that goal is unrealistic. Neither nation has confirmed the plan exists, and the dollar remains a safe and convenient backing for transactions in both Asia and around the globe.
Min-Hua Chiang of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center told Fox Business that “no other currency (backed by gold or otherwise) is comparable, and that is unlikely to change in the near future.”
Along with China’s enormous gold purchases, Russia has been forced away from the dollar by economic sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Gold prices have also tumbled globally, making it more attractive for those wanting to wean themselves off of U.S. currency.
There have also been rumblings from China concerning reform of the global financial system over the past several years. The Chinese Communist Party is well known to resent the dollar’s preeminence on world markets.
In essence, the two nations look to build their own sphere of influence, which would buffer each from the threat of U.S. and Western sanctions. And while this would be an outcome with noticeable effects on the West, replacing the dollar as fiat currency would be far more devastating.
