Lagarde Admits Dollar Losing Hegemony

April 18, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde sounded a muted panic this week in remarks yesterday in New York to the Council on Foreign Relations. Acknowledging the tectonic changes around the creation of new economic centers of power, she said: “We are witnessing a fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs, with each bloc trying to pull as much of the rest of the world closer to its respective strategic interests and shared values.” She went on that it will create “more instability” as well as “more multipolarity as geopolitical tensions continue to mount.”

Lagarde also mentioned the obvious, that dollar weaponization and sanctions have helped propel countries away from it: “All this could create an opportunity for certain countries seeking to reduce their dependency on Western payment systems and currency frameworks—be that for reasons of political preference, financial dependencies, or because of the use of financial sanctions in the past decade.” She warned, it does “suggest that international currency status should no longer be taken for granted.”

In that context, Lagarde gave a nod to the creation of Central Bank Digital Currencies, and said that the ECB is “exploring in depth.”