this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't we locked in a weird cycle where the US sells its debts to continue functioning, but then much of the system relies on the revenue generated from those debts being paid by the US.
If a sell off were to begin the price of bonds would plummet. The first countries to sell would be least impacted, but eventually the later countries are in bad shape. You can say sell at the "exact same time" but that's not really how financial markets work.
I suppose the US is still more reliant on these bonds, but I'd imagine a crashed dollar would have pretty large ramifications globally.
Of course of of this will happen anyway if the US decides to invade Greenland.
I can see where countries no longer invest in US bonds, but may be forced to hold onto these to not take a budgetary hit.
Yeah..... The really bad part is that it would be most harsh on countries with unstable currencies. The USD is basically the foreign currency reserve that backs most poorer nations currency.
Countries could slowly start exiting the US bond market, but they would have to find a replacement, and nothing has been as stable or financially open to scrutiny as the USD.
Even if more countries switched over the yuan it'd have to be a slow process. There would also be a lot more blind trust involved since there's a lot of things done behind the curtain between the national bank and local government banks.
If Trump gets his wish and co-ops the Fed, they might as well start dumping USD. It's going to be on a wild ride after that.
I would be skeptical of them "dumping" anything, but they probably would start to slowly diversify their reserves.
Right now there isn't exactly a replacement other than gold, but that's really impractical as a replacement for the bond market.
If only there was another currency used by a number of different countries.
What does France and Germany use? Can England back their pounds on the franc?
Are you asking if the EU can use the euro as a reserve currency?
I think I am, in the same way America uses its own currency. It's working for them; until this years potential collapse, I mean.
America doesn't use their own currency as a foreign currency reserve. They really don't have much of a need for a foreign currency reserve as they have historically had a relatively stable currency and a lot of partners who are more than willing to trade in USD.
The US has around 30-40 billion in reserve currency while the EU has somewhere between 300-400 billion.