What is the path to peace for the war in Ukraine? Is America still powerful enough to impose global order? The US has just 4.1% of the world's population, while the BRICS countries have 41.5%. In this conversation with economist Jeffrey Sachs, we discuss the origins of the conflict in Ukraine and NATO enlargement, US-China relations, and the decline of US dominance.

Jeffrey Sachs is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Sachs has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General. He was an economic adviser to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. Sachs was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders, received the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, the Legion of Honor from France, and was co-recipient of the Blue Planet Prize. He is Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, and academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican.

Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011).

"The US is also experiencing the reality that other places in the world are catching up on technology, indeed leading on technologies as well. And China is a very successful, very industrious, very hardworking society, which in the last 40 years has gone from poverty to a very significant world-important economy. And the US has a very hard time accepting that. The US attitude, if you listen to congressmen, who don't seem to know anything, is Oh, if China's successful, must be because they're cheating. What about because they're saving more than 40% of GDP, that the Chinese people have been engaging in a remarkable upgrading of education, hundreds of thousands of PhDs minted each year, and massive scientific research programs? Come on, this is the truth. And so this arrogance is not allowing the truth to come through. But you mentioned one specific point, which is the role of the US dollar. Part of the US strength after World War II is, well, the US was basically the only economy standing. And it was a technologically advanced, rich, large economy; the world's largest. And the dollar was really the only international usable currency for quite a long time. So the dollar system became the center of how you do international trade. When you trade in goods, they're denominated in dollars when you buy. The imports you pay in dollars, meaning you use accounts in US dollars. Typically in the US banking system, when the transaction is closed, it's closed through the so-called SWIFT interbank system. And so the US has had what France long ago called 'an exorbitant privilege', that it could print a lot of money because the rest of the world was holding dollars, using dollars. The dollar was the basis of the world economy. That's changing now. And it's changing for three basic reasons. One is the share of the US and the world economy is diminishing, so this means that the predominance of the US is bound to diminish. The second is technologically settlements are going to occur in all sorts of ways other than through US banks. So-called digital currencies, especially Central Bank digital currencies will mean other ways to make settlements. We'll settle in renminbi when we buy in China, or settle in rubles or settle in rupees when trade is with India, and so forth. So there will be multiple currencies. And then the third part, which is really a matter of a bad set of decision-making, the US has militarized the dollar. Meaning that usually, you think about money, well, you have it, you can use it, you can spend it. But the United States has come to say: if we don't like you, you don't necessarily have access to your money anymore if it's in our banks.”

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