Putin’s Pledge to Ditch the Dollar Is Slowly Becoming a Reality
Euro closes in on dollar as top currency for exports to EU. India agreed to pay Russia in rubles for defence sales.
Russia is acting on a pledge by President Vladimir Putin to shrink the role of dollar in international trade as tensions sour between Washington and Moscow.
The shift is part of a strategy to “de-dollarize” the Russian economy and lower its vulnerability to U.S. sanctions. But while the central bank was able to quickly dump half of its dollar holdings last year, progress in trade has been slow due to ingrained use of the greenback for many transactions.
The share of euros in Russian exports increased for a fourth straight quarter at the expense of the U.S. currency, according to central bank data. The common currency has almost overtaken the dollar in trade with the European Union and China and trade in rubles with India surged. The dollar’s share in import transactions remained unchanged at about a third.
“There’s been a strong incentive to change, not just for Russia but for its trading partners too,” said Dmitry Dolgin, an economist at ING Bank in Moscow. “The European Union is also now facing trade pressure from the U.S.” pushing them to try to reduce dependence on the dollar, he said.
The euro came close to replacing the dollar as the currency of choice for Russian exports to the European Union, with its share climbing to 42% in the first quarter from 32% a year earlier.
Russia still relies on the dollar for more than half of its $687.5 billion annual trade, though less than 5% of those deals are with the U.S. Part of Russia’s motivation to shift is that companies suffer delays on as much as a third of international payments in dollars because Western companies have to check with the U.S. whether the transactions are allowed, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December.
The euro’s share also increased in Russia’s $108 billion annual trade with China, jumping to more than a third of export settlements in the first quarter from almost nothing at the start of 2018. This shift, which covers commodity sales and big state contracts, has been accelerated by the development of payment infrastructure at the central bank and other lenders, according to Sofya Donets, an economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow.
Trade in yuan is difficult because of capital restrictions that limit foreigners’ access to Chinese assets, Dmitry Timofeev, who heads the Finance Ministry’s sanctions department, told the RBC newspaper.
“The yuan isn’t completely convertable, which means it can’t play a significant role in world trade,” Timofeev said.
The most dramatic shift is visible in Russia’s $11 billion trade with India. The ruble accounted for three quarters of total settlement in exports between the two emerging markets after they agreed on a new payment method through their national currencies for multi-billion-dollar defense deals.
“The trend is likely to continue because the infrastructure for transactions in alternative currencies is improving,” Renaissance Capital’s Donets said. “Russia won’t be able to give up using the dollar completely though, especially for trade of oil.”
https://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2019-08-04/putin-s-pledge-to-ditch-the-dollar-is-slowly-becoming-a-reality
this is why VP was let out of the US treasury notes starting in 2017 and accelerated in 2018. You can't do this without the help of the the original issuer, US treasury-he used most of the proceeds to buy gold.
still has to exist with the EU so you can't just shut off yourself from them, hence the using of euro's will continue to rise as long as the chinese use them to settle trade balances-the yuan is not usable(on a large scale) because they are in massive printing mode to save themselves-no one wants to be "caught" holding them during an inflationary currency cycle.
'dey is
Honduran president denies links to drug trafficking
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez on Saturday denied reports from a U.S. court filing linking him to drug trafficking, accusing criminals of seeking revenge against him.
“The drug traffickers are looking for revenge against the only president who’s done what he’s needed to do,” he told a news conference, detailing his efforts to curb illegal drug sales in the small Central American country where drug gangs have prominent strongholds.
Hernandez specifically opposed a report from U.S.-based Spanish language broadcaster Univision in which he said he was described as implicated in a campaign finance conspiracy.
Univision had detailed a 44-page document related to the upcoming drug trafficking trial in New York of Hernandez’s brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, that contained testimony from someone who appeared to be a former official.
“These are false accusations made by a drug trafficker,” Hernandez said, while acknowledging that such a document had been put before a U.S. judge.
The Honduran president, a conservative lawyer who came to power in 2014, has reined in homicides with a tough policy against drug cartels and street gangs that has been supported by the United States and criticized by human rights groups.
In May, a U.S. court filing showed that U.S. authorities had targeted Hernandez in an investigation of large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering, related to the drug trafficking case against Hernandez’s brother.
Tony Hernandez was arrested in Miami in November. A leader of the Cachiros gang had testified during a 2017 trial in New York that Tony Hernandez had taken a bribe to help launder drug funds.
Several other prominent Hondurans, including government officials, have already been prosecuted in Manhattan for drug-related crimes.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-honduras-drugs/honduran-president-denies-links-to-drug-trafficking-idUSKCN1UU02O?il=0
from August 2nd
Wright-Patt makes changes after ‘active shooter’ reaction
DAYTON, Ohio — A year after a chaotic “active shooter” false alarm at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base here, a base official says a review of the scare and the response to it has led to improvements.
Col. Tom Sherman, 88th Air Base Wing and installation commander, says a review board’s recommendations have been implemented at the base in the hope that they will prevent anything similar to what happened one year ago Friday, according to a report in the Dayton Daily News.
“We need to use what happened not as something that defines us, but something that makes us better,” Sherman told the paper. “I think that we’re going into this better than we were at this time last year.”
The false alarm on Aug. 2, 2018, resulted from miscommunications surrounding simultaneous training exercises, an active shooter drill at Kitty Hawk Chapel and a mass casualty exercise held by the 88th Medical Group at the Wright-Patterson Medical Center.
The confused reactions to the two emergency exercises snowballed into a massive, chaotic active shooter scare in which security forces shot a door open.
And while the incident ultimately ended with only minor injuries to one security forces airman, it could have been far worse.
The communications breakdown that occurred that day “led to a completely uncoordinated and ineffective” response that could have ended up causing serious injuries or property damage, officials said.
Sherman says radio systems have been added to improve communication with outside authorities, with a specific staging area used when they are contacted.
Wright-Patt has also linked its emergency systems with 911 call centers so the base is sharing information with the appropriate dispatch locations throughout the area, the newspaper reported..
The word “exercise” is being repeated over the loudspeaker three times before drill communications during training exercises this week at the base near Dayton.
The 88th ABW is one of the largest air base wings in the Air Force with more than 5,500 Air Force military, civilian and contractor employees.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/08/01/wright-patt-makes-changes-after-active-shooter-reaction/
ima take dat
just full of comments tonight
>You have not one clue what I've done or not
cap#2 is related to your chest-thumping, grow up
ya did it to me again! just about to leave.
finish that then out, thanks for all of them today!
night fren