After the end of the Second World War, the United States, which did not suffer the destruction of war, possessed 75% of the world's gold alone. The US dollar was the only currency in the world covered by gold. This led many countries to accumulate US dollars to replace them with gold. As a reserve, and a large number of these countries used the currency of the dollar as a foreign exchange reserve, was the meeting of the world and the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement that states that the dollar is the international monetary standard for all the currencies of the world where America pledged to the world that it has a cover of HP equivalent to what is produced from dollars.
The United States fought the Vietnam War from 1956 to 1975. As usual, the United States needed more dollars to cover the costs of the war and the growing needs of the American people. But dollars were not enough, because gold in the United States (and even the world) was no longer enough to cover the dollar The US could no longer print more dollars because the existing gold was no longer enough to cover them, so the United States exceeded the maximum allowable amount of dollars printed and printed dollars not covered in gold without informing anyone.
But the big crisis came when French President Charles de Gaulle in 1971 called for the transfer of US dollars from the French central bank to gold (asking for $ 191 million to be converted into gold equivalent, and the price of the ounce was $ 35), in accordance with the Bretton Woods agreement, This led to the inability of the United States later to convert any US dollars into gold, prompting US President Richard Nixon to issue a statement in 1973 canceling the commitment of the United States to convert US dollars to gold, later known as the Nixon Shock or Nixon shock.
The value of the dollar has fallen 40 times from 1973 to now, the price of gold has gone wild, and it has become a common commodity like silver, platinum, etc. But America has succeeded in persuading Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries not to accept the price of oil in dollars. On energy.
On the other hand, countries were shocked by the way the whole world was fooled. After working over the years to accumulate the US dollar as a reserve for foreign exchange to replace it with gold when it wanted, it is now unable to do so. The worst of all is that it was still forced to Dealing with the dollar, because it can not abandon it after it has accumulated all these dollars in the foreign exchange reserves or lost in the wind.
One might ask: Why do not these countries disengage from the dollar and cancel dealing with it? Because the American fleet that roams the world is not there to guard a vacuum, it is the military force that protects economic power.
Thus, the dollar has become the largest foreign reserve currency in the world; Where all countries are forced to deal with it in addition to being the main currency, which is determined by the rest of the currencies based on it, which established American hegemony on the world economy.
America still prints whatever paper it wants and buys the goods of all peoples.