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... the $.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/01/trum...

Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, with its puerile Pentagon nametag, Operation Epic Fury, is another show of violent force from a bullish administration.

Aside from unleashing fresh instability across the Middle East, the strikes add to the sense of a US operating with little regard for international law or global norms – as with Trump’s on-off tariff regime, and the attack on Venezuela.

In the financial sphere, that is only likely to add weight to an incremental but historic shift away from the global dominance of the US currency, and towards a more complex world, that may be less to Washington’s liking.

The trade-weighted dollar – measured against a basket of global currencies – has lost 7% of its value over the past year, despite strong US economic growth and soaring stock prices on Wall Street. That partly reflects the outlook for inflation, and therefore interest rates, but also perhaps a more nebulous sense that the US policy framework is not as solid and predictable as it might once have been.

As panellists concluded at a conference in London last week convened by the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy, what appears likely is not that one currency will supplant the dollar, as the dollar abruptly replaced sterling after the second world war, but the emergence of a more complex, multipolar system.

The Trump administration halted sales of a number of classes of armaments to Ukraine because stockpiles were dwindling. Since then, at the repeated requests of our assorted allies in the Middle East (most of whom have lavished financial incentives toward Trump, his family and close associates - everything from Airforce 1 to Miriam Adelson's third largest donor to Trump's 2024 election bid, donating $106 million, to investments by various sovereign wealth funds, etc.), has poured lavish quantities of advanced munitions on the Yemen Houthis, twice now on Iran and both protected and resupplied Israel during after the Gaza war and Iran's aerial attacks.

Do we still have the same strategic capabilities that we had to, say, protect Taiwan from a Chinese invasion? What is the cost of resupplying these munitions to the taxpayer? Have we charged the Middle Eastern countries for the arms we are using in the same way that we are charging Ukraine - or is all this activity on the US taxpayer's dime?

Jeff

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