{"id":688439,"date":"2026-10-18T02:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=688439"},"modified":"2026-10-18T02:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T02:30:00","slug":"the-biggest-winners-and-losers-from-the-petrodollars-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=688439","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Winners And Losers From The Petrodollar&#8217;s Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">The Biggest Winners And Losers From The Petrodollar&#8217;s Decline<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/internationalman.com\/articles\/the-biggest-winners-and-losers-from-the-petrodollars-decline\/\">Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Iran war is straining US weapons stockpiles and raising doubts about Washington&#8217;s ability to protect the Persian Gulf.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/image%20-%202026-10-17T105731.604.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/image%20-%202026-10-17T105731.604.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"afbee353-3cb8-403d-91d6-aa4900035b83\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/image%20-%202026-10-17T105731.604.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If that weakens the petrodollar and pushes oil producers away from the US financial system, two assets face clear headwinds: the US dollar and US Treasuries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The petrodollar system helped create structural demand for both.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If oil exporters sell more energy outside the dollar system, fewer oil dollars need to flow back through Wall Street and into Treasury securities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>At the same time, the US government needs to borrow staggering sums to finance its deficits, military commitments, entitlement programs, and interest expense.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That means rising supply of Treasuries could collide with weakening structural demand.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the 10-year Treasury yield.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The 10-year Treasury yield is perhaps the most important financial benchmark in the global fiat system, as it drives valuations and market trends worldwide.<\/strong> It is widely &#8211; and erroneously &#8211; regarded as the risk-free rate of return.<\/p>\n<p>The 10-year Treasury yield can be thought of as a key barometer of the US dollar-based fiat system &#8211; a critical measure akin to its beating heart.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bond yields move inversely to bond prices.<\/strong> When bond prices fall, bond yields rise.<\/p>\n<p>A rising 10-year Treasury yield signals trouble for the US dollar because it means investors are selling Treasuries, which pushes up the US government&#8217;s borrowing costs. That is why the 10-year Treasury yield is a major pain point for the US government.<\/p>\n<p>The 10-year Treasury yield was 3.97% in late February 2026. Now it is around 5.26%, an increase of roughly 129 basis points. 129 bps might not seem like much, but with over $40 trillion in debt and growing, <strong>every basis point matters<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/word-image-74045-1.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/word-image-74045-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"0ba29a03-7fc8-4e2b-9c7a-00990abe0b67\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/word-image-74045-1.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At today&#8217;s debt levels, every 1 basis point increase in the government&#8217;s average borrowing cost adds roughly $4 billion in annual interest expense. So a 129 bps rise is not trivial &#8211; it translates to nearly $516 billion in additional yearly interest costs, materially widening a budget deficit that was already around $1.8 trillion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I expect the 10-year Treasury yield to keep climbing over the coming weeks and months &#8211; until it forces the Fed&#8217;s hand.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At that point, the intervention will be sold as &#8220;stability,&#8221; but the mechanism will be familiar: suppress yields by debasing the currency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That feedback loop could become one of the defining investment stories of the years ahead.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The Biggest Winner<\/h2>\n<p>The biggest winner should come as no surprise.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gold.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>China and the major Middle Eastern oil producers have accumulated gold for years. I do not think that is a coincidence.<\/p>\n<p>They sit near the center of the changes taking place in the international monetary system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>China produces more gold than any other country and ranks among its largest consumers.<\/strong> Nobody outside Beijing knows how much gold the Chinese state controls, but its official holdings tell only part of the story.<\/p>\n<p>China has also spent years constructing the infrastructure needed to connect yuan-denominated trade with physical gold markets.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That preparation makes much more sense when you view gold not as a commodity, but as a neutral settlement asset.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The last monetary transformation of comparable importance began when Nixon severed the dollar&#8217;s link to gold in 1971.<\/p>\n<p>Gold traded at $35 per ounce under the old system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>By January 1980, it reached $850 &#8211; a gain of more than 2,300%.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think the monetary shift taking shape today could prove just as important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more than half a century, the petrodollar helped create structural demand for dollars and US government debt.<\/strong> It allowed Washington to run deficits and export dollars on a scale no normal country could sustain.<\/p>\n<p>Americans have come to regard that privilege as a permanent feature of the financial landscape.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It isn&#8217;t.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At first glance, depleted US missile inventories may seem unrelated to the future of the dollar. They aren&#8217;t. Both depend on the same thing: the ability of the US to convert its enormous financial power into real-world economic and military power.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington can create dollars without limit.<\/strong> It cannot create missile factories, rare-earth supply chains, control over the Strait of Hormuz, or confidence in the US security guarantee with a keystroke.<\/p>\n<p>If the Iran war exposes the limits of US military power, pushes the Gulf states toward accommodation with Iran and China, weakens the dollar&#8217;s role in the oil trade, and accelerates the movement of global reserves toward gold, we could look back on this period as the moment the post-1971 monetary system entered its final stage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What started with a shortage of missile interceptors leads to a much bigger conclusion: the Iran war is exposing the limits of both American military power and the monetary system that power has supported for more than half a century.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The signals to watch are clear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Watch the oil producers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Watch the dollar.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And above all, watch gold.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The petrodollar&#8217;s decline could push Washington toward more money printing &#8211; and put your purchasing power at risk. The time to prepare is before the crisis forces your hand.<\/p>\n<p>For investors, the danger lies in assuming the rules that built yesterday&#8217;s wealth will protect it tomorrow. A monetary shift of this scale could punish that assumption &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/internationalman.com\/special-report\/the-most-dangerous-economic-crisis-in-100-years-the-top-3-strategies-you-need-right-now\/\">and reward those who prepare before the crowd.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" lang=\"\" class=\"username\" xml:lang=\"\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Sat, 10\/17\/2026 &#8211; 22:30<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/image%20-%202026-10-17T105731.604.jpg\" title=\"The Biggest Winners And Losers From The Petrodollar&apos;s Decline\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Biggest Winners And Losers From The Petrodollar&#8217;s Decline Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com, The Iran war is straining US weapons stockpiles and raising doubts about Washington&#8217;s ability to protect the Persian Gulf. If that weakens the petrodollar and pushes oil producers away from the US financial system, two assets face clear headwinds: the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=688439\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Biggest Winners And Losers From The Petrodollar&#8217;s Decline<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-688439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=688439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=688439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=688439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=688439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}