Petro Dollar or Gold. It's obvious something has gone wrong. In 1971 this country became a debtor nation and it has continued to this day. It'll probably never be able to repay its debt. But two years later, in 1973 something else happened, the laying of the transatlantic telecommunication cable from America to Belgium. It started the SWIFT banking messaging system. By 2006 the United States weaponized that system to punish adversaries. But China and Russia created their own messaging system negating America's sanctions.