President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has raised doubts about America’s superpower status and currency dominance as the Strait of Hormuz remains under Tehran’s control.
But Dan Alamariu, chief geopolitical strategist at Alpine Macro, isn’t buying predictions about a U.S. decline.
In a note on Friday, he acknowledged that if Iran’s regime is left standing while retaining some control over the strait, it would represent a “strategic setback” for the U.S. and humiliation for Trump.
“The bigger question is whether this marks the end of American superpower status, dollar dominance, and the petrodollar. More possible if Iran ends up with control of the SoH, but we would not bet on it,” Alamariu added.
He also shot down comparisons to the Suez Crisis in 1956, when the U.S. pressured Britain and France to abandon their attempt to regain control of the Suez Canal, signaling the end of their reign as great powers.
Alamariu pointed out that the two European countries had effectively lost their empires by then after being bankrupted by World War II: “The U.S. does not resemble that.”
In addition, the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War also gave rise to declarations of American decline, but it was instead the Soviet Union that ended up collapsing, he noted.
“Similarly, the petrodollar faces some increased risk, but the GCC has more reason than ever to keep ties with Washington close, given Beijing’s perceived closeness to Iran,” Alamariu wrote, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council. “The idea of a petroyuan or petroeuro replacement remains far-fetched.”
For now, Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz, selectively allowing a trickle of ships through in exchange for payments in yuan or cryptocurrency; the U.S. Navy is preparing to clear mines from the narrow waterway.
Wall Street analysts have highlighted that dollar dominance is anchored by the greenback’s use as the standard currency in the global oil trade.
But the yuan’s ascendance during the Iran war could establish a petroyuan as the U.S. security shield and guarantee of free navigation weaken amid drone attacks that have evaded American air defenses.
For his part, Alamariu is also skeptical about Iran’s attempt to de-dollarize the oil trade with its current toll booth arrangement for the Strait of Hormuz.
“If anything, the GCC appears poised to resist Iran (with U.S. help) and accelerate bypass pipeline construction, should Iran retain control of the SoH,” he said. “Lastly, even Iran’s proposals for yuan- or crypto-denominated strait tolls are not meaningfully dollar-bearish; most stablecoins are effectively dollar-denominated instruments.”
Even if the petrodollar weakens, dollar dominance still rests on other factors that other currencies can’t match, according to Paul Blustein, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Those include the depth, breadth, and liquidity of U.S. financial markets as well as the freedom to move money across U.S. borders virtually unimpeded, he wrote in a Fortune op-ed last month.
“It accounts for well over half of foreign currency reserves held by central banks, and a similar share of export invoices for cross-border trade, as well as international bank loans and bond issuance,” Blustein added. “Network effects entrench its status; everybody has an incentive to use the dollar because so many others do.”
