Russian President Addresses Tectonic Shifts Occurring in the World Order

Russian President Putin in a recent speech predicted trade in national currencies will soon dominate globally. He suggested the long reign of the U.S. dollar as the world's trading benchmark and reserve currency will soon be over. In its place, trade and financial settlements conducted using the national currencies of the trading partners will gain momentum and gradually replace the dollar and make holding it in reserve redundant.

Putin said the U.S. and its allies have weaponized and compromised the U.S. dollar through illegal sanctions and seizure of other people's reserves. "Using the dollar as a weapon, the United States, and the West as a whole, discredited the institution of international financial reserves, first devaluing them due to inflation in the dollar and the Eurozone, and later completely pocketing our foreign exchange reserves," he said.

The seizure of the Russian assets has made all nations think about whether to keep reserves in dollars and reflect on what an independent and depoliticized international financial system could be, he said.

"Sovereign development must be ensured for all countries; the choice of any country must be respected. This is also important even in relation to the financial system," Putin remarked.

He suggested that the legitimate defence of Russia's national interests against U.S./NATO encroachment with a special military operation in Ukraine will "accelerate" changes in the current world order dominated by the United States.

"We're facing a historic milestone," Putin said. "Ahead of us is possibly the most dangerous, unpredictable, and, at the same time, crucial decade since the end of the Second World War."

Putin insisted that "a flare-up" of some sort "would have happened regardless of how Russia could have acted in Ukraine" due to an inevitable decline in U.S. power relative to others yet increasingly desperate attempts of the U.S. to maintain its hegemony.

"Yes, there are some issues -- I refer to the losses incurred due to the special military operation -- and I always say that, yes, there are economic losses," Putin remarked. However, in the end he suggested the losses will be offset with enormous gains arising from the assertion of Russia's "sovereignty in all domains, and in particular, in the economic field."

Putin insisted Russia has proven more resilient than Western officials would have expected and has, despite the difficulties, pivoted to insisting on a "new world order based on law and justice," a prospect that requires the formation of a new international financial system impervious to U.S. sanctions and dollar hegemony.

He questioned whether such a future is possible. "Yes, he answered. It would require a lot of effort and joint efforts of many countries, but it is possible to overcome the abuse as it now exists. A new global financial infrastructure could be built to safely and securely benefit all countries without the intervention of the U.S. dollar and the current system of reserve currencies, which are open to abuse by the most powerful."

Putin denounced "the Western globalization model," insisting that the structure of the existing world order is advantageous to an elite in the United States and disadvantageous to almost all others.

"As soon as you open your market for certain items, goods, then the local producer is going down, and it's almost impossible to bring back the industry," Putin asserted, saying that is the way they build relations. That is how they take over markets and resources leaving countries without much potential.

Putin denounced the enforced U.S. "standardization" of economies saying, "This has been the foundation of the Western globalization model, whose nature is neo-colonial, basically reinforcing absolute dominion of the West over the world economy and the world politics."

But within the situation he said, "Existing power centres are wilting and new ones are emerging mostly in Asia but also in Africa, which is still a very poor continent, so far, but you see the great potential to tap into there. And the same applies to Latin America. And these changes will happen, these tectonic shifts."

(Quotations and files from various mass media)

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This article was published in

Volume 52 Number 11 - November 2022

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2022/Articles/M520119.HTM

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