Editor's note: Li Haoran is an assistant professor at the School of Applied Economics and the associate director of the Center for Research on Global Energy Strategy at Renmin University of China. Zhang Xuan is a senior engineer and the director at the Energy Strategy and Policy Research Institute at China Southern Power Grid. The article reflects the authors' opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

When WTI crude rose above Brent on April 2, the market was not just reacting to another burst of geopolitical tension. It was revealing something more important: the global oil market is under strain, and so is the dollar-centered order built around it. For years, Brent has usually traded at a premium to WTI, reflecting its closer connection to internationally traded, seaborne crude, especially flows exposed to Middle Eastern risk. WTI, by contrast, has generally been anchored more firmly in the US market. So when WTI moves above Brent, this is not just a pricing anomaly. It is a sign that the latest shock has altered where risk is concentrated and how that risk is being absorbed.

Part of the explanation is straightforward. Brent is more directly exposed to disruption around the Strait of Hormuz and the broader instability affecting seaborne oil trade. WTI is supported by US production, storage and deep financial markets. In periods of acute stress, that difference matters. A benchmark tied more closely to American market infrastructure can temporarily outperform one tied more directly to vulnerable shipping routes. But the bigger significance of this reversal lies elsewhere. It has revived the debate over whether the petrodollar system is being strengthened by crisis, or quietly weakened by it.

In the narrow, short-term sense, the dollar still benefits from oil shocks. Oil is mainly priced in US dollars, so when prices rise, importers need more dollars to pay for the same energy. At the same time, war risk tends to push investors toward dollar assets. Higher oil revenues in the Gulf also continue to feed, directly or indirectly, into dollar-based financial markets. This old machinery still works. But that short-term support should not be mistaken for long-term strength. It is the kind of resilience that comes from inertia, not from renewed confidence.

The deeper story is more troubling for the dollar. The petrodollar was never just a matter of invoicing convention or market habit. It rested on a broader political bargain: US security influence in the Gulf, trust in American financial institutions and the belief that the dollar-based system was the safest and most reliable way to organize energy trade. That bargain has become harder to sustain. Every major geopolitical shock now raises the same uncomfortable questions. Can shipping routes still be protected? Can payment channels remain neutral? Can countries rely on a system so exposed to sanctions, strategic rivalry and political pressure? Those questions do not need immediate answers to have real effects. The more often they are asked, the more the credibility of the system begins to erode.

This is why even limited experimentation with non-dollar settlement matters. The point is not that the yuan, or any other currency, is about to displace the dollar in global oil trade. The point is that alternatives no longer seem implausible. Once producers and importers begin to view dollar dependence as a geopolitical vulnerability rather than a pure convenience, diversification becomes a rational hedge. That shift in mindset matters more than the current scale of non-dollar transactions.

The real significance of the WTI-Brent reversal, then, is not that it proves the petrodollar has been revived. If anything, it shows the opposite. Yes, crisis still pushes market participants back into dollar-centered systems. But each such crisis also leaves behind more doubt about the political foundations of those systems. The dollar may still dominate oil trade, but dominance is not the same as credibility. A system can remain central even as confidence in it slowly declines.

That is what this conflict is exposing. The petrodollar is not collapsing. But it is becoming harder to present it as a neutral, unquestioned and durable foundation of the global energy market. The world is not seeing a rebirth of the petrodollar. It is seeing the costs of over-reliance on it more clearly than before.

If there is a lesson in WTI moving above Brent, it is not that dollar power has been restored. It is that geopolitical conflict is making the dollar-centered energy order look more fragile, more political and ultimately less credible. That may not overturn the system tomorrow. But it does make its long-term erosion easier to imagine — and, over time, easier to act on.