US President Donald Trump's knee-jerk movements have caused months of disturbances since his election; this is a fact we all know very well. In fact, this second administration of his was only ever going to be a distilled version of the first four years, more pointed, precise and damaging. But this level of self-sabotage in the US economy has caused America’s rivals (and enemies) to lick their lips at their good fortune.

From Brussels, Beijing, Tehran and Moscow, global leaders under the cuff of Pax Americana for decades longer than this writer has been alive have been forced to integrate their economies into the American dollar sphere of influence. In the case of the latter two capital cities, the so-called “exorbitant privilege” America has flexed to its enemies is an accepted daily problem for the denizens of those cities.

That privilege America has long enjoyed, which has pertained to forcing the globe to use its greenback, has made Americans credit addicts. The American economy at the end of the Great Recession of 08-09 was the same size as Europe; today it's double, and even Donald Trump’s strange machinations have only dented that partially. True – one could say that Americans have suffered in one sense; with the rust belt's crumbling away and drug abuse riddling the working class, you can see why he has the backing of blue-collar workers from coast to coast. But does this mean Trump & Co. want to sink the dollar, yanking it away from the global hegemon we have all become used to?

Trump officials claim otherwise, but the only way America can produce goods comparable in price to the Global South is to make the dollar cheaper – by sinking the dollar, quite like China, Russia and Iran to some extent with their multiple exchange rate policies and strict cross-border transaction mechanisms. Try trading with one of these countries, and you will quickly find out why the dollar had always remained “as good as gold” well until the 1970s.

The Trump administration’s Jekyll and Hyde routine over its short-term to medium-term currency plans has predictably spooked, well, pretty much everyone at the current rate. American investors are liquidating in some sense, and long-time allies, including Saudi Arabia, have quietly reduced their US dollar-denominated holdings in recent months. The cherry on the cake was the so-called “liberation day” tariffs with the grinning president in the Rose Garden seemingly laughing at other countries' sudden predicament – even allies like Israel were hit with greater tariffs than heavily sanctioned Iran, so if anyone can explain the logic to that, letters in the post please!

Overall, confidence in the US and the American dollar has tumbled in recent months, and Trump’s cursing of groups like BRICS (which now technically include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran) and their potential counterweight to the dollar hasn’t helped America’s situation as a calm captain in rough seas. Trump’s May 5 threats to the global movie industry are now seen as an opportunity to pull the industry further away from American hands, with investment houses telling IntelliNews that Trump’s threats are a boon to their future portfolios.

America has historically faced off against many countries, which now appear to be increasingly united against its hegemony; it’s not a coincidence either. Is the time now ripe for the BRICS countries (including the oil producers, remember) to issue a new currency to take on the dollar at its weakest moment? Could the major economies issue new debts linked to a BRICS currency, which global emerging markets investors would lap up as a sure thing, with China and Russia at the helm, backed by oil and global production?

Despite the leaks of dinner party fake bank notes being passed around the silverware in South Africa in 2024, not all the building blocks are in place. First, to try to marry the Russian and Chinese economies with a new external currency sounds virtually impossible, add to that Iran, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, UAE and a host of other countries, and you can see how this turns out to be a bit of a nightmare. If linking the Iranian and Russian off-brand SWIFT was hard, a new BRICS currency would be quantum science and a bit more.

In other words, despite the threats to date, none of America's adversaries/competitors have dared to show their cards, allowing Trump to play his own machinations. Are they watching the US implode in real time? Who knows, but something has got to give in the next few months.