In 1974, during a crucial period of shuttle diplomacy, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger orchestrated an agreement of cooperation with Saudi Arabia. This landmark accord, negotiated in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, where the U.S. backed Israel and faced a crippling oil embargo by Arab nations, was a pivotal moment in global geopolitics. The agreement, which recently expired and has been the subject of much chatter and hand-wringing, was never a secret and was extensively covered by mainstream media at the time. But the real story isn’t about the agreement; concern for the dollar arises from the agreement’s recently expired 50-year secret “side deal.”   The United States is China’s largest single trading partner — it needs a strong dollar to buy its exports.  Comprising just six pages, the original agreement created two joint commissions between the countries — one addressing Saudi Arabia’s military needs and the other focused on economic cooperation. Records of an Oval Office meeting between Richard Nixon and Prince Fahd on the day of the signing show both parties agreed on the need for a robust Saudi military to protect itself and all of the Gulf states.  After that, the military commission’s future work was detailed but relatively straightforward.  It focused on establishing what type and how much armament would be sold to the Kingdom for defensive purposes. The Economic Commission’s meetings were straightforward as well but much more secretive.  Negotiated by U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon, the details of economic cooperation remained in darkness until a Bloomberg 2016 Freedom of Information Act request brought them into the light.  Now, eight years later, that fifty-year side deal has recently expired, prompting predictions of economic doom by some and of total irrelevance by others.  Both reactions are extreme, but there is some truth in each. (READ MORE from Kevin Cochran: Inflation’s Puppeteer: The Government) At the time, Simon, the former head of the Treasury Department’s trading desk at Salomon Brothers, was faced with two tasks: insulating the U.S. from another oil embargo and finding an outlet for financing the growing national debt.  The agreement brokered with Saudi Arabia achieved both outcomes by requiring the Kingdom to sell oil to the United States denominated in dollars and then to invest the proceeds of those sales by buying Treasury bonds.  While not binding on other OPEC countries, they mostly all fell in line with Saudi Arabia, priced oil trades in dollars, and purchased U.S. Treasuries.  The Euro wouldn’t exist for another twenty-five years, and the British pound sterling was the only other currency marginally used for trades. There was no reasonable alternative. Because of the Saudis’ leadership role and OPEC’s dominance in world oil markets, other countries outside the Middle East correspondingly followed suit by trading oil in dollars. This standardization also provided economic benefits to countries beyond the commodity itself by pricing petroleum transportation and its insurance in dollars. The more significant effect, however, was that it cemented the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Global energy was denominated in dollars, and the profits from its trade were invested in U.S. Treasuries.   With the agreement’s expiration, many now fear a collapse or a highly weakened dollar as a consequence.  Doomsayers foresee a move by OPEC away from dollar-based oil trade settlements and into other currencies, most notably the Chinese Yuan.  If that were to happen on a large scale, global demand for U.S. currency would drop, weakening it and strengthening the Yuan.  The effects on Americans would be more expensive imports and increased interest rates needed to attract Treasury investors.  But is this relegation of the greenback to second-world status likely?  Looking behind the sensational hyperbole, there is some solid contrary evidence to the premise that the dollar will be abandoned. Because the agreement was only binding on U.S./Saudi trades, a not insignificant amount of oil has always moved outside the dollar’s purview.  JP Morgan estimates that as much as 20 percent of all petroleum sales are settled in other currencies.   The UAE recently took payment for a trade denominated in Indian rupees, while French oil giant Total Energies has made deals valued in Yuan for liquified natural gas (LNG).  And, because of U.S. economic sanctions, Russia and Iran have not unexpectedly moved to pricing oil trades in the Chinese currency.  Trading without dollars has always existed, and while it has marginally increased in recent years, the shift is not because of the 1974 agreement’s expiration. However, the dollar’s use for trading oil shouldn’t be the focus — its standing as a reserve currency is much more important.  It isn’t the currency you spend that matters; it’s the currency you hold.  All the big kids in the Middle East — OPEC’s major players — peg their currencies to the U.S. Dollar.  This includes not only Saudi Arabia and the UAE but also Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman as well.  Abandoning the dollar as their reserve currency would decimate their economies. It’s not going to happen. China, while not pegging the Yuan to the dollar, also has a hand in the game of maintaining the strength of the U.S. currency. The United States is China’s largest single trading partner — it needs a strong dollar to buy its exports.  Likewise, China is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries (behind Japan), and a devalued greenback means significant losses for those reserves.  Indeed, trading oil with the Yuan transactionally makes life a bit easier for the Middle Kingdom, but it still needs to hold piles of dollars to maintain its export volume. That won’t change. While the Biden administration hasn’t been overly friendly with the Saudi Kingdom, there is a decent chance that a new agreement on oil trading and treasury investment could be reached.  Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding its currency’s peg to the dollar, also holds a significant investment in Treasuries like China.  The exact amount isn’t known as the secret 50-year deal obfuscates its holdings by lumping them into the reporting category of “other countries.” Still, it is estimated to be well in excess of $100 billion.  Regardless of the status of diplomatic relations, economic ones typically drive solutions. (READ MORE: An Economist Looks at the Immigration Crisis) Yes, a few more independent oil trades may take place valued in Yuan, or even the Euro, but nothing significant enough to merit fear of the dollar’s collapse.  And, Russia and Iran may become used to using the Yuan and not abandon it even if the economic sanctions are removed. However, there is too much inertia behind maintaining the status quo for most oil trades. There’s a reason it’s called the Petro Dollar. Kevin Cochrane is an economist, former senior banking executive, and regularly published national columnist.  He is currently a visiting professor at the University of the West Indies in Barbados and has taught university economics for the past two decades in the United States. The post The Dollar Is Still Essential appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“Ukraine will stop Putin” declared America’s failing president whose uncertain political fate and cognitive issues loomed  over NATO’s 75th annual conference hosted last week in Washington, where many participants took time on the side to meet with some of Donald Trump’s top advisors such as former ambassador to Germany, Rick Grennel, and ex-NSC chief of staff, general Keith Kellogg. The Europeans are now “paying” more for NATO as 23 members cross the 2 percent of GDP for defense threshold this year, long insisted by Trump , so they may be looking to get their money’s worth in advice. But it will take a lot more than “twenty four hours” to convince Putin to settle for a bombed out sliver of Ukraine after losing a half million Russians. If they wanted to know whether Biden meant that Kyiv will stop Russia from overrunning all of Ukraine and threatening the rest of Europe as long as Western military aid keeps flowing, the Europeans would be told that  would not change under Trump. But if he meant that Russia can be stopped from taking over eastern Ukraine as is Putin’s currently declared goal, bets may be off. (READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: U.S. Policy Lets Russia Dock in the Americas) Situations both on the battlefield and in the increasingly active diplomatic front are not running in Ukraine’s favor. China has become a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war effort” according to the official statement issued by the NATO conference, allowing Putin an almost limitless capacity to prosecute his war. Western intelligence reports indicate that China is increasingly providing electronic software components through various guises for Russia’s production and perfection of its cruise missiles, which are becoming notably more accurate and stealthy. It’s also speculated that North Korea may feed troops from its 1.5 million man army  to replace Russia’s mounting  losses as part of a military alliance recently signed by Putin and Kim Jong Un, who is already supplying Russia with millions of 152 mm artillery rounds. Reports last week even indicated that Chinese or North Korean special units joined Russian Spetznaz for military exercises in Belorussia, Putin’s close ally bordering Ukraine to the north. While NATO pledged “unwavering” support for Ukraine, the $40 billion annual aid package committed to its war effort at the conference, falls short of what president Volodymyr Zelensky and other east European leaders now consider necessary. The main types of weapons mentioned for the package are largely defensive; lots of billion dollar Patriot air defense systems and a limited quantity of F-16 jet fighters, maybe 70, to be flown in  over the next several months. It’s about half of what Zelensky considers necessary to counter Russia’s air force capable of launching 300 air sorties a day. Despite Biden boasting that “NATO has never been stronger” cracks could develop within the alliance as support for Kyiv starts weighing against peace initiatives being proposed with increasing insistence by some members.  While the conference concluded that Ukraine’s path to full NATO membership is “irreversible” the fine print indicates that’s only “after the war with Russia is over,” according to an AP analysis based on statements by NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg who gave no timetable for Ukraine’s adherence and signaled caution with Russia. “NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. We remain willing to maintain channels of communication with Moscow to mitigate risk and prevent escalation” said Stoltenberg who emphasized the need to “end the war as soon as possible” without mentioning the need to defeat Russia or force withdrawal of its forces from Ukraine as was NATO’s past position.  Putin launched his 2022 invasion because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. He attempted  to take  Kyiv using outdated armored tactics in an operation modeled on the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, which ousted a reformist government threatening the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact at the time. He grossly underestimated Ukraine’s highly nationalistic armed forces already formed with Western arms and guidance, while overestimating the capabilities of his own army riddled with corruption under his regime. He has only recently started trying to fix that by firing top defense officials and reorganizing Russia’s military industrial base. Following his rout outside Kyiv, Putin refocused on the more limited goal of annexing eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region to secure a land connection to the Crimean peninsula, set up local puppet governments under ethnic Russians, and control key industrial zones. While initially encouraging Zelensky’s crusade to recover “every inch” of Ukrainian territory, NATO now seems resigned to conceding Moscow its land gains through negotiations in which Kyiv’s NATO membership could be a bargaining point. In exchange for at least de facto recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea and however much of Donbass its troops hold at the moment of a hypothetical ceasefire, Russia would have to accept NATO’s protection over Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. A special new body set up at the U.S. army base in Wiesbaden, Germany to administer and channel assistance to Kyiv would serve as a “bridge” to eventual full membership, says Stoltenberg. A similar idea was floated  about a year ago as Ukraine’s “counteroffensive” failed to break through Russia’s highly fortified southern lines to siege Crimea. Zelensky threw a fit and NATO officially disavowed the leaked conversations. But the plan resurfaced behind closed doors at this week’s summit as the only viable peace solution that the West can propose at the moment, according to diplomatic sources. As the conference got underway, Ukrainian government spokesmen reluctantly expressed willingness to negotiate with Moscow without a prior Russian agreement to withdraw  from occupied areas, Zelensky’s main demand until now. But that may hardly satisfy Putin at this point. He wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from parts of the Donbass not fully occupied by Russia as the starting point for talks, according to Hungarian president Viktor Orban who is leading efforts to mediate a ceasefire. Orban had meetings with Putin in Moscow and China’s Premiere Xi Jing Ping in Beijing before heading to Washington. Turkey’s authoritarian ruler Tayyip Erdogan who has one of NATO’s largest armies and controls access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus straights is also fence straddling, having participated at the meeting of a newly formed alliance of Central Asian nations including Iran, chaired by Putin and Xi days prior to attending the Washington conference. He openly disagrees with alliance policies in such key areas as supporting Israel and fancies his role as potential peace broker in Ukraine. The  peace lobby, however, faces  resistance from Poland and other east European states that feel most threatened by Russia and whose leaders have publicly criticized NATO for failing to do enough to support Ukraine. They would fiercely reject any move to turn over the north east province of Luhansk, for example, back to Russia after Ukraine retook it in 2022 and successfully fought off renewed Russian advances against its main city, Kharkhiv, in recent days. Neither can the east europeans or NATO founding states such as UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands which are supplying Ukraine’s F-16s and long-range cruise missiles, be expected to pressure Kyiv to just allow Russia to walk onto the strategic ridge line of Chasiv Yar controlling the industrial Donetsk valley and the key city of Kramatorsk. Despite months of pounding the area with the bulk of his forces deployed in Donbass, Putin has made only marginal gains, taking a small neighborhood on the eastern side of a canal that crosses the town of Chasiv Yar, at a cost of 5,000 men, according to the Institute for the Study of War. (READ MORE: Argentina Is Making Progress, But Not There Yet) Orban cut short his NATO summit attendance to fly to Mar-a-Lago to talk with Trump about the increasingly dangerous and precarious situation he would be facing in Ukraine if returned to the White House, thanks to the Biden administration’s indecisive mismanagement and poor planning. An intricate and multifaceted U.S. led peace initiative combining military pressures with direct personal diplomacy on Putin, requiring a degree of focus and coordination which Biden is clearly incapable of, is the only way of ending the Ukraine war on Western terms without reaching the MAD of WW3. But it will take a lot more than  “twenty four hours” to convince Putin to settle for a bombed out sliver of Ukraine after losing a half million Russians. He now has China and much of the Eurasian continent firmly behind him as Biden barely managed to articulate at Thursday’s press conference. The post NATO Worried About Biden and Ukraine appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from And We Know: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

LIVE COVERAGE: Trump Shot In Attempted Assassination! https://t.co/SQZI5QzVHB — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 14, 2024

Emergency! America Is Now Under Globalist Attack! More Assassination Attempts Imminent. The Deep States Next Move is False Flags, Civil Unrest & Martial Law! This is a maximum alert. More Update to come. @Elon you should get to your bunker immediate, this is a live coup. pic.twitter.com/hQO4s80nJR — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 14, 2024

from RT: The former president has narrowly escaped death when a bullet grazed his ear Former US President and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt during his 2024 election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Several shots were fired while Trump was delivering a speech in front of a crowd of […]

by Eric Zuesse, The Duran: The United States is safer from a foreign invasion than any other country, not because it spends half of all of the world’s military expenditures, but because it is separated by over 3,000 miles of ocean away from Europe and from Asia, and because its only two bordering countries are entirely […]