I can’t help but think that, like the Nazis paying off the MEFO Bills with stolen Austrian, Czech, and tooth gold, the theft of Venezuelan oil is about papering over the cracks in paying for a bloated war machine.
Beginning of the end of the US Dollar as a reserve currency.
We Americans are so fucking boned.
I wonder if other countries will be following suit, or what. This seems like a drop in the bucket.
It’s more an indication of the way the wind is blowing than a big financial move.
I see it more as a mild threat. They’re making sure that everyone knows what kind of non-military power the US is up against right now. Simply announcing this small sale will probably cause outsized ripples in the bond and exchange markets. Business leaders that previously didn’t care will now start pressuring the administration to back down because they’ll feel those ripples and recognize the threat.
Given that the administration particularly called out asking Europe not to sell off USA assets before the about face on Greenland, I’d say the threat worked.
However, I don’t think it’s an empty threat that is just resolved like that. The USA has been on a downward trust trajectory. They got away with bullying behaviour when they also helped keep peace and stability. Now that’s gone, the benefits are outweighed by the negatives. That will take decades to win back after Trump. The electorate always gets the result they deserve.
There’s 170,000 people enrolled in that particular pension fund meaning participants invested $590 in UST on average. Not exactly a mind blowing amount but still nice.
Divesting because of US being too indebted is bollocks of course, for now US is still the issuer of their currency and they get effectively unlimited money as long as USD remains global trade currency (which means killing own production but Trump isn’t really all that successful at restarting it so far).
