In order for the New World Order to rise, the Old World Order has to die. That is what we are witnessing when we watch Europe climbing on board with the Eurasian agenda and "standing up" to Uncle Sam.
Remember when I told you about "China's SWIFT Alternative and the (Engineered) Death of the Dollar"? Well, now it's Germany's turn to get in on the act. As the Financial Times reports: Germany’s foreign minister has called for the creation of a new payments system independent of the US as a means of rescuing the nuclear deal between Iran and the west that Donald Trump withdrew from in May.
Writing in the German daily Handelsblatt, Heiko Maas said Europe should not allow the US to act “over our heads and at our expense”.
“For that reason it’s essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels that are independent of the US, creating a European Monetary Fund and building up an independent Swift system,” he wrote. Boom. There it is.
As I wrote in these pages earlier this year, the scrapping of the Iranian nuclear deal was the international crisis that was needed to tip the scales and nudge the EU out from under the umbrella of the post-WWII American World Order and into the clutches of the New Eurasian Order that President-For-Life Xi is busy constructing with his Belt and Road project. That Belt and Road vision of a united Eurasian trading space is not just about building highways and rail lines; a key aspect of that vision is the creation of an alternative payment system that bypasses the American-dominated SWIFT network.
But before we get too carried away, let's get back to basics: What is the SWIFT network? SWIFT is an acronym that stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, and, as the name suggests, it is a telecommunication service that is used by banks to settle international transactions. You can read all about the SWIFTNet messaging platform and the wonders of standardized international financial communications on the official website, but suffice it to say if you're a bank you need to be on the SWIFT network to be able to do international business.
Just ask the Iranian banks. Back in 2012 they were de-listed from the SWIFT Network after Uncle Sam pressured the network (via the EU Council) to ban sanctioned Iranian banks. This event gave the lie to SWIFT's professions of being a non-political entity, proving that, at the end of the day, the network will block any nation that finds itself in the cross hairs of the American Empire.
Fast forward to 2018 and Iran is once again being sanctioned by Trump and the gaggle of chickenhawk neocons he has appointed to his cabinet. And, once again, the US is using the SWIFT network as an economic battering ram against Tehran. This time Washington is threatening SWIFT's board members and their respective employers with their own sanctions unless the organization once again de-lists the targeted Iranian banks by November 4th.
There are a couple of problems with this plan, though. One problem is that the SWIFT board is composed of 25 globalist bankster insiders, so the chances of Uncle Sam actually following through and personally sanctioning these men and women in November is as close to zero as possible. As economic blogger JP Konig writes in his article on "Europe's SWIFT Problem":
SWIFT's board is made up of executives from twenty-five of the world's largest banks, including two Americans: Citigroup's Yawar Shah and J.P Morgan's Emma Loftus. No matter how erratic and silly he is, I really can't imagine Trump following up on his threat. Would he ban all twenty-five banks, including Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, from doing business in the U.S.? Not a chance, that would decimate the global banking system and the U.S. along with it. Requiring U.S. banks do [sic] stop using SWIFT would be equally foolish. Would he risk ridicule by putting two American bank executives—Shah and Loftus—under house arrest for non-compliance? I doubt it.
Doubtful, indeed.
And, as it turns out, the question of whether or not the White House will have to follow through on these threats is not so theoretical after all. In fact, neither JP Morgan nor Citibank have committed to cutting off the Iranians this year. Reports indicate that both banks are opposed to disconnecting Iran from the SWIFT network, and, as noted by Konig above, both banks are represented on the board of SWIFT itself. So there is a very real possibility that SWIFT will stand up to Washington directly.
But even if SWIFT does go along with the sanctions, it's now becoming clear that even staunch US allies in Europe are ready to throw the whole network under the bus just to take this weapon of mass financial destruction out of the hands of whichever swamp dweller currently resides in the Oval Office. Hence the German foreign minister taking to the pages of a German daily to very publicly float the idea of creating a new international payment system.
But why go to all that work when—as I pointed out in "China and Russia Creating Alternate Banking System" last year—one already exists. Actually, two. That's right, China's very own Cross-border Inter-bank Payments System (CIPS) has been up and running for nearly three years already. And Russia's SWIFT alternative—dubbed SPFS and intended to facilitate transactions between Russian banks specifically—was pronounced operational a year and a half ago.
Furthermore, it must be understood that the move to circumvent American control of global finance is not just limited to the creation of CIPS and SPFS and whatever alternative the Europeans come up with. We've already seen how Russia dumped over 80% of its US Treasury holdings earlier this year and used the funds to buy gold. And we've already seen the birth of the petroyuan this year with the launch of China's yuan-denominated oil futures contract on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange. And just last week we heard Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov openly calling for the end of the dollar as a means of mutual settlement.
It seems Germany is not so radical in suggesting a SWIFT alternative after all. If anything, they're late to the party. As Jim Rickards notes in a recent op-ed, this talk of ditching the SWIFT network is just "one more sign that dollar dominance in global finance may end sooner than most expect," adding that "[w]e are getting dangerously close to that point right now."
But hold on a second, there is a very important point that needs to be made here. All of these payment "alternatives" and calls for a new international financial system have to be understood for what they are: The next phase in the globalists' long game. These new structures are not really alternative at all, and even if they genuinely do undermine the power of the US government they do not undermine the banksters' control over the system itself.
I mean, come on. Does anyone really think that JP Morgan and Citibank are the valiant heroes standing up to Washington and its out-of-control sanctions? That President-for-Life Xi and Vladimir "Apartment Bombing" Putin are really going to be the saviors that will lead us to a new international order of peace and happiness for all?
If so, you might want to check the reality on these feelgood stories about the "alternative" structures that are being created. Take the Chinese SWIFT alternative. Shortly after it went live it signed a memorandum of understanding with SWIFT itself to use the SWIFT network to transmit its messages. That's right, the Chinese "alternative" to SWIFT actually relies on SWIFT to operate!
And the Russian alternative? It is a total mess. Expensive. Slow. Cumbersome. It is a pain in the rear to operate and the Bank of Russia's own internal report on the system admitted that "banks are not interested in using domestic services instead of the convenient SWIFT and they can only be moved to the SPFS by force."
So if and when Germany actually follows through with its threat to create an alternative payment network, it is almost certain that it will be a watered-down payment channel that will probably rely on the SWIFT network to operate anyway. And even if a truly alternative inter-bank payment network were created, it would still be an inter-bank payment network. Not an open-source, permissionless, blockchain-based payment channel, open to everyone, but just another inter-bank payment network. Whoopie.
This is the point that I always come back to. Whether it's the BRICS or the BRICS bank or the SWIFT alternatives or the petroyuan or the SDR or any of the other proposals for "fighting Uncle Sam's hegemony," it is always a way for the globalists to foist more regional cooperation on the masses and consolidate their control over the international financial system. As I've pointed out time and time and time and time again, the decline of the US and the death of the dollar is being engineered on purpose. The US is not supposed to maintain its supremacy in the 21st century.
In order for the New World Order to rise, the Old World Order has to die. That is what we are witnessing when we watch Europe climbing on board with the Eurasian agenda and "standing up" to Uncle Sam.
As always, the real solutions start and end with what we the people can do to interact directly with each other to undermine these systems of control and the push toward regional/global consolidation. And you can take that to the bank.
...Oh, wait. There's just one more little tidbit to this story. Remember the op-ed that Germany's finance minister wrote? The one that suggested establishing this alternative payment system to bypass the US? Want to guess what that op-ed was titled?
"Making plans for a new world order."
You can't make this stuff up.