After years of talk about abandoning the US dollar, Russia and China are doing it for real. In the first quarter of 2020, the share of the dollar in trade between the countries fell below 50 percent for the first time.
For an idea of the significance of that, just four years ago the greenback accounted for over 90 percent of their currency settlements.
The 54 percent of non-dollar trade is made up of Chinese yuan (17 percent), the euro (30 percent), and the Russian ruble (7 percent).
The dollar's reduced role in international trade can mainly be blamed on the ongoing trade war between the US and China. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated even further in 2020.
In January, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that Moscow is continuing a policy of ‘gradual de-dollarization’ and looking to make deals in local currencies, where possible.
Luckily for the US they are printing a few more Trillion $$
