US Sanctions against RT, which were announced on September 13th, continue a trend towards the collapse of the US dollar as global reserve currency, and demoting the country to ‘third world status’ as Donald Trump revealed on September 5th, 2024, during the New York Economic Forum.
Sanctions, Sanctions, and More Sanctions
On September 13th, American’s announced sanction against Russian Media Rossiya Segodnya, the state-owned proprietor of RT, for allegations that Washington could not prove. In a seemingly rehearsed statement, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken blamed RT for being a threat to democracy, citing unproved allegations that it engaged ‘covert’ and ‘Subversive’ activities. Alongside sanctions, Blinken announced Washington’s plan to create a resilient Global Informational System to control and rank the news people around the world received.
The US acted as the judge, the jury, and the executor in a blatant attempt to silence dissent. While blaming RT, for being state-owned, Blinken hypocritically omitted how Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and BBC are also owned and directed by states. Similarly, western corporate media work for western corporations that run the US government. Therefore, Blinken and his puppet masters seek a world where information is monopolized by Washington and London, using sanctions which threatens their financial empire.
An Information Empire to defend a Failing Financial One
Blinken’s statement reflects desperate efforts to maintain Washington’s Empire, which needs centralized control of information to distract exploited subjects by pointing them to some bogeyman they should worry about. Russia has been cast as this monster, which the EU (especially Germany) should deindustrialize itself to fight, by sanctioning Moscow’s energy resources, even to the empire’s detriment. Africans are also distracted away from the US exploitation, endless wars, and European colonialism to instead worry about Russia’s influence which brings security, aid, and investment. Still, the west’s paranoid empire cannot stand the presence of Russians Opinions and has resulted to further sanctions, undermining its dollar for delusions of grandeur that are progressively becoming unattainable each passing day. The American’s Global Informational System has not, and will not, change the underlying reality that the US has lost ground through its love for sanctions, which the Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump warned will make the US a Third World country.
On 5th September 2024, Trump made the most significant revelation yet that the US Empire lives off other countries, and would become a Third World country if it lost this ability by losing the ‘dollar standard’. Ironically, Trump made this revelation at the Economic Club of New York, in which attendants were financialists (debt sellers) and not economists. They included Steve Mnuchin, Jay Clayton, and David Malpass, (all former) Secretary of Treasury, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and Head of The World Bank respectively. They do not run productive units for creating products to meet human needs and wants as economists would, and their role reflect Washington’s. Instead, they sustain a scheme that creates USD out of thin air and sells it for real assets, resources, and labour. This class still has the audacity to sanction countries with resources and factories, (Russia, Iran and China), while expecting the targeted countries to submit to such injustice.
Charging Tributes on Countries through the ‘Dollar Standard’
Trump’s reference to the ‘dollar standard’ emphasizes how the USD, which the world is conditioned to view as a free ‘standard’ is essentially a tool through which Washington charges tributes from parties using it. During the event one moderator introduced his question by describing how the US uses sanctions to advance national security interests, and foreign policy objectives, before asking Trump if he would strengthen or modify sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which Biden administration bombed. Washington is not willing to miss any opportunity to squeeze more anti-Russian sanctions, even from destroyed infrastructure. Still, sanctioning Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea based on national security, justification shows how Washington’s ruling class’ views the entire world as a part of its territory. Trump’s, reply revealed that these sanctions were pushing the US Empire towards losing the US ‘dollar standard’, which could be devastating as seen in the quote;
The problem with what we have with sanctions and I was the user of sanctions but I put them on and take them off as quickly as possible because ultimately it kills your dollar and kills everything the dollar represents and we have to continue to have that be the world’s currency. I think it is important, I think we’ll be losing a war, if we lost the dollar as the world’s currency. I think that will be equivalent of losing a war and that will make us a third world country, and we can’t let that happen.
The question and Trump’s response, while reinforcing the US imperial attitude, also denotes cognizance of the empire’s limitations, beyond what narrative managers can conceal. Trump would continue boasting that he imposed sanctions on ‘deserving countries’ and withdrew them, before the targeted countries could seek alternatives, stating, “We are losing Iran, we are losing Russia, and China is trying to spread its currency”, revealing extreme narcissistic behavior. He boasted of destabilizing trade, economies, and hence livelihoods, a behavior that also undercuts the USD by reducing the usury it attracts on foreign trade settlements. His thinking that countries cannot naturally seek alternatives to the US-based payment system after experiencing deliberate sabotage through sanctions reveals an alarming level of imperial hubris.
Sanctions Accelerate Dedollarization
Mr. Trump and now Blinken think that sanctioned countries will always rush to the USD after sanctions are removed, which might not happen. Sanctions against Rossiya Segodnya, and RT continues in this line of shortsighted actions that undermines the US Financial Empire. In the highly unlikely event that these sanctions will silence alternative voice in the global setup, they will achieve this result while also accelerating dedollarization and crippling Washington’s system of collecting tributes. The ultimate outcome is what Trump feared while bemoaning that the US was losing to Russia, Iran, and China. Washington’s ruling class repeatedly smear the three countries using various nasty labels, but it still wants to collect usury from their trade and resources. These countries have created better life than the third world status Trump fears the US would fall into without the dollar as the global standard. Trump’s Revelation should be noted by all American supremacists and should be used to dispel their misplaced superiority complex, as they have built a system that would rapidly fall into third world status if it was not sponging on others.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
