...The special position of dollar as reserve currency confers certain very important trade, financial and political advantages to the USA. In a widely discussed paper titled `An Existential Threat to the US Dollar' the authors Daniel Tenengauzer, John Vellis and Geoff Yu ( BNY-MECCON--Aerial View Magazine, September 2020) say, " The status of the USD allows the US, as its issuer, to run huge international deficits in its own currency, and has allowed international liabilities to be paid off at a lower rate of interest than the US receives in income from abroad." Clearly it is a huge advantage to clear international payments in its own currency. As such the USA authorities would like this arrangement to continue for as long as possible.

However this excessive power should not be used in arbitrary ways and to inflict undue and high costs on others, as in the case of imposing sweeping sanctions. In the case if Iraq, which had been earlier devastated by an invasion led by the USA, these sanctions are reported to have led to around half a million deaths. This was followed by a second invasion as well. ...