How America Controls the World with the Dollar | The Untold History of US Power

In February 2022, around $300 billion of Russia's central bank reserves were frozen overnight. There was no battle and no invasion. So how did one country gain this kind of power over the world's money, trade and information? This animated history tells the 80-year story of how the United States came to sit at the center of the global economy. It starts at Bretton Woods in 1944, where Keynes lost to Harry Dexter White and the dollar was tied to gold. It moves through the Marshall Plan, GATT and the US Navy, Nixon cutting the dollar's link to gold in 1971 and the birth of the petrodollar with Saudi Arabia. Then come SWIFT, sanctions on Iran and Russia, the $8.9 billion BNP Paribas penalty, Federal Reserve swap lines in 2008 and 2020, ARPANET, Big Tech, Edward Snowden, the Huawei ban and the chip war. Finally, it looks at where the dollar stands today and whether de-dollarization led by China, Russia, India and the BRICS can ever challenge it. Is the dollar's power a source of global stability, or a weapon? Watch till the end and decide for yourself. ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro: $300 Billion Frozen Overnight 0:55 Bretton Woods, 1944 2:23 Rebuilding the World: Marshall Plan, GATT & the Navy 3:25 The Crack in the System 4:12 The Nixon Shock (1971) 4:55 The Petrodollar 6:07 SWIFT, Sanctions & the Pipes of Global Banking 7:40 The Federal Reserve: Lender to the World 8:24 The Internet: The Invisible Frontier 9:52 The Tech War: Huawei & Chips 10:34 The Dollar Today: Reserves & Forex in Numbers 11:14 Resistance: CIPS, BRICS & De-dollarization 12:09 The Debate: Does America Control the World? 12:49 Will It Last? 📊 SOURCES FOR TODAY'S FIGURES • IMF COFER data: dollar ≈57% of global foreign exchange reserves • Bank for International Settlements Triennial Survey 2025: dollar on one side of ~89% of FX trades; ~$9.6 trillion traded per day 🔔 Subscribe to Untold Tales of History for more forgotten stories from the past. #USDollar #Dedollarization #Petrodollar #BrettonWoods #EconomicHistory #History #Geopolitics #UntoldTalesOfHistory