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"De-dollarization" has become an international buzzword. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, during his China visit in April, called on fellow BRICS nations to come up with an alternative currency to replace the U.S. dollar in international trade.

Countries in the Middle East, ASEAN and Shanghai Cooperation Organization members are increasingly settling trade and payments with each other's currencies. Even French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe should oppose the "extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar."

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of dollar hegemony? And what implications will de-dollarization have on the global economy?

CGTN's Sr. International Editor Abhishek G. Bhaya spoke with Benjamin Norton, founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, to get some clues.

Edited excerpts:

CGTN: What are the key factors triggering this nearly global call for "de-dollarization"? 

Norton: For many decades, countries in the Global South have tried to create alternatives to the dollar-dominated system. The difference now is the momentum. There are more and more countries, and not only countries in the Global South, we even see for instance, the French president Emmanuel Macron, the leader of a country that's a member of NATO in the European Union, even he has criticized the United States' weaponization of the dollar.

The United States stole billions of dollars from the Central Bank of Iran. And then the United States also stole billions of dollars from Afghanistan's central bank. And that has led to a severe economic crisis in Afghanistan and hyperinflation because the Afghan central bank can't stabilize its currency. And that has fuelled potential famine.

And finally, when the U.S. and Europe seized $300 billion in assets that belong to the Russian Central Bank, that was a wake-up call for many countries because they realized if the U.S. and Europe can cease, that is to steal, the central bank reserves of Russia, which is a significant power, a large country, not only Venezuela and Iran and Afghanistan; they have to take measures to protect themselves.

CGTN: How much is U.S.'s own policy responsible for scaring the rest of the world from dollar domination?

Norton: As the Fed consistently raises interest rates, it makes it more expensive to borrow in dollars and it decreases the money supply. And that means that many countries around the world, especially those in the Global South, have to get access to dollars to pay for imports of commodities like oil and gas or need to get access to dollars to pay for imports of technologies and machine parts and medicines, it has become prohibitively expensive for many of those countries in the Global South to import.

Furthermore, related to that, many countries in the Global South have their foreign debt denominated in U.S. dollars, and as the value of the U.S. dollar increases against their own domestic currencies, it makes it even more difficult for those countries to pay off their debt.

So those factors - the weaponization of the dollar, through the imposition of sanctions around the world and the U.S. monetary policy, increasing the value of the dollar against other currencies - has led a lot of countries, especially in the Global South, that feel the heat of this economic crisis around the world to look for new economic alternatives.

CGTN: By one estimate, the dollar constitutes 88 percent of all international transactions. How easy or difficult it would be to dethrone the dollar? Is the world ready for the abdication of the U.S. dollar?

Norton: According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, they claim that around 80 percent of international trade involves invoicing in U.S. dollars. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that those countries need dollars; they simply invoice their trade in dollars.

Just in the past year with the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine, we've seen a huge escalation in countries doing trade with Russia in their local currencies, including Iran and India and Bangladesh and I expect that to increase.

In the past 20 years, according to the IMF's own data, we've seen a 10 percent decrease from around 70 percent to around 60 percent in the dollar's share of central banks' foreign exchange reserves around the world. And with the Western seizure of Russia's foreign exchange reserves, it's going to accelerate that process as well.

So again, to stress this point, it is a gradual trend that we're seeing, but it's one that's going to continue to pick up steam and it's a positive trend for the majority of the global population because the majority of the global population has not benefited from the dollar system. It's only a small handful of, essentially, elites who have benefited, concentrated in a few countries like the United States and to a lesser extent, some European countries.

So, if new international financial systems can be created to make that international framework more democratic and equitable, that's a positive thing for the majority of the global population.

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