Why does all Global Trade happen in the USD if the USD is not backed by the gold standard?

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It doesn’t really make sense for countries or unions (e.g. EU) to decide to base their trade of the USD and keep a lot of their foreign reserves as the USD if it isn’t backed by gold. Wouldn’t this just mean that a lot political power is given to the US because they have the ability to arbitrarily set the value of trading currency if it isn’t based of a real-world resource like gold ?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The US doesn’t set the value of the dollar. Think about it. Let’s say you have two hundred dollar bills and I want to buy them from you. The price for that exchange is something you and I agree between us. I’ll probably ask a handful different sellers and find out who’s selling at the lowest price, and then buy their dollars. The US government can’t really dictate how much you or I sell *anything* for.

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