Hey US, remember that soft power you used to have? Yeah.
And the military power. That’s out of the window too. If Trump’s goal had been to systematically dismantle everything that made the US the dominant power in the world, he wouldn’t have done anything differently from what he actually did. Not that I’d want to spread any silly conspiracy theories, of course.
Not that I’d want to spread any silly conspiracy theories, of course.
Is it really a conspiracy if it’s playing out on live TV, in real-time?
China and Egypt have agreed to increase trade and investment settlements in their local currencies, moving away from the US dollar.
A bit of a sensational headline.
Yes, that’s what I thought, too.
You may know that, but just for others who may not be too much into this:
Egypt is not moving away from the USD. It is just further diversifying its trade and dependencies. It is also noteworthy that trade between Egypt and China moves mostly in one direction: from Egypt to China. Between 2021 and 2025, Egypt’s imports from China increased from USD 14 billion to almost USD 19 billion, while Egypt’s exports to China decreased from USD 1.5 billion to lesss than USD 0.5 billion.
While almost 20 percent of Egypt’s imports come from China, less than 1 percent of Egypt’s export go to China. It’s a good business for Chinese companies, not necessarily for Egyptians as they face a huge and growing trade deficit. (Egypt largest trading partner is the EU btw.)
And the local swap agreement between the countries must be seen under China’s somewhat special currency policy: The Chinese Yuan used within China (known as the CNY or onshore Yuan) is different from the Yuan used outside of China (the CNH or offshore Yuan). There is no free float for the offshore Yuan either as the Chinese Central Bank allows trade within a narrow range that is said to be of 2% above or below the mid-rate for the day. If the exchange rate moves outside these limits, the central bank steps in. However, it can change its policy at any time.
By this currency policy, the Chinese Communist Party has been able to determine an exchange rate regime that works in the interests of the Chinese leadership (not necessarily the Chinese people). It could depreciate its currency at any time as it has done in 2019, when the property crisis in China started, and this crisis is not yet over as we know.
I mean sort of a bit? But only if you skim the headline instead of taking in all the words in it and figuring out what they mean.
For the unaware, Egypt is chronically short on foreign currency, which is probably part of why they’re willing to do this even though America probably won’t like it.
Nobody is dropping the US dollar all at once. I would expect to see a continuing transition to other currencies over time.
Good
China could probably raise even more debt than America. I’m just looking forward to number go up
Oh is it their turn to start attacking critical trade routes for no reason?
China’s total debt burden is already larger than that of the United States and has long surpassed 300 percent of its GDP. The public debt accounts for more than 40 percent of the total debt, but has been rising sharply in recent years.
China could probably raise even more debt than America
Literally why?
