How weaponising the dollar changes everything: singaporean economist Dr. Kee Wee Tan explains.

In this interview, singaporean economist Dr. Kee Wee Tan guides us through a brief history of the ASEAN countries and their development model as part of the value chains of the western-led capitalist world-system. Dr. Tan then explains how this model has gradually entered into crisis, and how the process of militarizing the dollar became a crucial event in this paradigm shift. Sanctions on Russia and the tariff war of spring/summer ’25 against China have significantly accelerated processes of trade diversification and, above all, undermined confidence in the dollar as an international reserve currency capable of acting as a reliable store of value. Close attention is given to the lights and shadows of the Trump presidency and to the intrinsic contradictions of an economic policy that, on the one hand, aims at reindustrializing the country, while on the other collides with the negative effects such a project has on the cornerstone of U.S. super-imperialism in the post–Bretton Woods system: the centrality of the dollar as an international currency. The interview with Dr. Tan is particularly instructive and offers us a new perspective from which to observe and analyze the systemic shift we have been witnessing- at an accelerated pace -at least since February 2022 and the decision to seize russian financial assets held in Euroclear. With a pragmatic and relatively pro-business approach, Dr. Tan raises a crucial question: “If they can seize the reserves of a country with 6,000 nuclear warheads, what confidence can less powerful countries have in the security of their own reserves?” Coupled with the use of tariffs as an instrument of economic warfare by the Trump administration, this move by the democratic West instead reveals its authoritarian face, further contributing to the consolidation of the process of alignment around the BRICS pole. Enjoy the interview.