Are the US and the West falling into Russia's "gold trap"?

A truly epic business deal, like something out of an American movie, making it hard to believe it's real.

The war between gold and the USD

During the Ukraine crisis, in an attempt to subdue Russia, the US and the West waged a currency war aimed at collapsing the Russian economy using the USD-oil leverage. This involved leveraging the global power of the USD, combined with the influence of "financial sharks," to devalue the Ruble and drastically lower oil prices, thereby targeting Russia's primary source of export revenue and its gold reserves.

Admittedly, this is a dangerous tactic, a "traditional" weapon of the US and the West. It's called "traditional" because the administration of President R. Reagan used it before and it proved highly effective in knocking out the Soviet Union. Moreover, its power and danger are even more terrifying today, given that the US dollar has become the dominant currency and that "financial sharks" exist within Russia itself.

The effect of this surprise attack was the disastrous collapse of the Russian ruble. December 16th is considered "Black Tuesday" as the ruble fell by 10%, prompting the Russian central bank to immediately raise interest rates to 17% per year, but this still failed to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.

Along with record-low oil prices, observers sensed that the Russian economic crisis was deepening. However, on December 18th, Putin, in a meeting with over 1200 journalists, still smiled and claimed: "Only about 25-30% of the current state of the Russian economy is due to US-EU sanctions and falling oil prices." So where does the remaining 70% come from? Does it have anything to do with "financial sharks"?

1. An unprecedented transaction in the history of the financial market(!)

"Previously, a portion of the shares of energy companies belonged to foreign investors (Americans and EUs) - this meant that nearly half of the revenue did not go into the Russian treasury but into the accounts of European and American 'financial sharks'."

When the US and the West struck, the ruble unexpectedly depreciated, but the central bank could do nothing to maintain the ruble's exchange rate. Rumors spread that Russia lacked foreign exchange reserves to support the ruble. These rumors, along with Putin's statements that he was ready and would protect Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, led to a sharp drop in the share prices of Russian energy companies, and "financial sharks" began selling their shares even though they hadn't yet lost their real value.

Putin waited a whole week, and when the price had fallen below the threshold, he suddenly ordered the immediate purchase of all shares held by both Americans and Europeans. By the time the "financial sharks" realized they had been tricked, it was too late; the shares were already in Russian hands, and now Russia has earned over $20 billion. But far more important than the $20 billion is that the Russians have regained over 30% of the shares, completely controlling their companies. Now, revenue from oil and gas will not flow abroad but will remain in Russia, the value of the ruble will increase on its own, and there is no need to spend foreign exchange reserves to maintain it. As for the European "financial sharks," in just a few minutes, their shares were bought up, and they no longer have any revenue from oil and gas. (according to Kichbu)

A truly epic business deal, like something out of an American movie, makes it hard to believe it's real. However, the following Russian business deal is a reality.

2. Using gold to eliminate the dominance of the dollar.

Is it time for the dollar to share power?

In the financial world, gold is considered an anti-dollar, meaning that in transactions and treasury reserves, only gold has the value to challenge the power of the dollar. Gold, currently the only option, can replace the dollar as the ultimate means of payment and wealth accumulation.

But as the world's hegemon, the US forces the world to consider the US dollar as the strongest and most valuable currency, and in reality, with a leading global economy, the current strength of the US dollar is inevitable. And naturally, to protect the dollar's dominance in the global currency market, the US has policies and laws to "suppress" and force the value of gold to depend on the dollar, that is, to be subject to US adjustments.

In 1971, US President R. Nixon ordered the closure of the "gold window," ending the free exchange of gold for dollars.

In 2014, during the Ukraine crisis, the US and the West, through their efforts and resources, intervened in oil and gold prices to strengthen the dollar and cripple the Russian economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin immediately opened a "golden window," beginning free exchange between gold and the dollar without needing "permission from the US."

Firstly, regarding exports. Russia does not consider the dollar as the ultimate means of payment, nor as the primary source of accumulation; instead, it values ​​gold. All dollars earned from selling oil, gas, etc., to the West are immediately converted into gold by Russia.

The interesting irony here is that the US and the West pay for goods from Russia in dollars, but the real value of the dollar has been artificially inflated by the US and the West to artificially lower the price of oil and gold. Meanwhile, Russia uses these dollars to immediately buy gold at that artificially low price. Ultimately, "Russia has put the US and the West in the position of a snake, powerfully and diligently swallowing its own tail." This is what I consider the best commentary of the year from Global Research, instead of "shooting oneself in the foot" or "using the opponent's own weapon against them"...

We remember that in the 1970s and 80s, Japan bought a lot of assets in the US, including government bonds, because Japan had a large trade surplus with the US, similar to China's situation now. Then, in 1985, the US forced Japan to sign the Plaza Accord, causing the yen to appreciate by more than 50% against the dollar in the following two years. This was equivalent to all of Japan's previous investments in the US losing more than half their value, meaning the US blatantly defaulted on 50% of its debt to Japan.

While the US hasn't yet achieved this with China, the Fed could easily manipulate over $3 trillion in bonds to make them disappear at any time. China is well aware of this, but due to its growth targets, it is forced to accept the bribes, accept the possibility of default, and stubbornly persist in its efforts.

It's clear that China and Japan traded their wealth and resources for US dollars, printed and issued by the US, but Russia didn't; Russia traded those things for gold. The numbers speak for themselves: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that Russia's gold reserves increased by 19 tons in November of this year, reaching 1,187.5 tons. This is the highest gold reserve figure for the country in 20 years. Russia has been importing gold for the past eight months to take advantage of low prices. In the third quarter of this year, when gold prices fell by 1.9%, out of 93 tons purchased by banks worldwide, Russia accounted for an astonishing 55 tons.

Secondly, regarding import payments, Russia announced that payments in gold would be converted to dollars. This announcement was met with enthusiastic support from the BRICS countries and China. Furthermore, China declared it would “stop increasing national reserves in dollars.” This means that, like Russia, it will still accept dollars as a medium of exchange for goods, but will later replace them with something else in its national reserve structure.

It could be said that the Russia-China relationship is considered the most successful in limiting, and eventually eliminating, the dominance of the dollar that China has long aspired to. Chinese goods and Russian energy are ultimately paid for in gold. In this game, the dollar will not appear in the currency basket of the BRICS group of countries.

Europe would have to buy energy from Russia with gold and goods from China also with gold, and certainly then gold from Western reserves would flow into the coffers of the BRICS countries, which do not use the dollar as the ultimate means of payment.

Gold is not as easy to produce as printing dollars, and with the sharp decline in current gold reserves, the West can only wait for the day the dollar disappears from the historical stage when it is no longer a means of payment or the ultimate reserve for countries around the world. What Russia and China are doing, along with the BRICS countries, has truly begun to change the position and role of the dollar in the global monetary system.

When oil prices plummeted to their lowest point, the Soviet Union sold off its gold reserves. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed. The US and the West rose to power, and the dollar became the dominant currency in the world.

Now, with oil prices at their lowest, Russia is buying gold to stockpile. What will the result be? Will it be the collapse of the dollar-oil hegemony, the model of global dominance by the US and the West?

What will the US and the West do? Traditionally, to eliminate the threat to their hegemony and national interests, the US and the West would either overthrow the Putin-Russia regime (a color revolution) or launch a military attack on Russia, but both approaches seem impractical.

The US and the West have recognized the severity and desperation of Putin's monetary "gold trap" after understanding the golden rule: "Whoever has the most gold makes the rules," and are still unsure how to escape.

According to Dat Viet Newspaper