Republican Senator Ben Sasse Calls Saudi Willingness to Trade Oil in Yuan a 'Big, Bad Thing'

News that Saudi Arabia is considering accepting yuan for Chinese oil sales prompted another round of bellyaching from Western politicians who've seemingly come to realise sanctions on Russians are only pushing the Global South towards Russia and China

In a segment on Fox News Sunday, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) claimed "the Saudis pricing some of their [oil] commodity in Chinese currency, or signalling that that's where they're headed…is a big, bad thing".

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported Saudi Arabia was in "active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan".

Much of the world is looking to bolster oil reserves amid what the International Energy Agency warned on Wednesday could be "the biggest supply crisis in decades", as evidence mounts that US and EU efforts to keep Russian gas out of Western vehicles and residences may ultimately backfire.

Sasse, who demanded on Fox that the US "rearm" the Ukrainian regime "constantly", and insisted that "defeating Vladimir Putin" is the only way to stop China from being able to "displace the dollar", is just one high-ranking American politician expressing alarm over the continuing de-dollarisation process encouraged by the wide-ranging sanctions on Russia.

But outside the confines of Europe and the US, calls for global financial and oil distribution systems to move beyond the US dollar have grown louder since Washington effectively banned Iranians and Venezuelans from international trade over the last 4 years.

The US dollar has served as the global benchmark for international oil sales since the 1970s, when the United States struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to standardise oil prices in dollar terms, an arrangement which led to the creation of the so-called "petrodollar". Per Quartz, 80% of global oil transactions are currently denominated in US dollars.

Now, it seems the American push to eliminate Russian supplies from global oil markets may have finally been a bridge too far for a number of influential nations in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Regional powerhouses like India, South Africa, and Mexico have all issued public statements declining to take the West's side regarding Moscow' special military operation in Ukraine, indicating a growing willingness among rising Global South nations to finally take the plunge and look past the US monopoly on global trade relations.

On Thursday, South African President Cryil Ramaphosa openly declared his support for the Russian Federation's denazification and demilitarisation efforts, noting that the current situation "could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region". But that could just be the tip of the iceberg.

Arguably more distressing for Western governments are the potential economic ramifications of pushing traditional non-NATO allies away. "Russian oil exports to India have quadrupled this month", the Financial Times wrote Friday.

The fact that the world's third-greatest oil producer and third-greatest oil consumer are pursuing their own trade relations, outside of the realm of potential Western interference, is "a sign of the vast reshaping of global energy flows" they say has taken place since the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine.

And it's now looking increasingly likely that Russia and India will go beyond a mere expansion in volume of oil sales, and move towards dropping the dollar together.

For much of the so-called "Third World", official statements indicate the value of pursuing their own strategic interests now outweighs the risks of potentially jeopardising relations with the West. In such countries, where the ongoing de-dollarisation process inspires more relief than hysteria, long-standing anti-colonial grievances are reemerging.

"Are we your slaves to follow your orders?", Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan rails against the EU's demand for Pakistan to condemn Russia: pic.twitter.com/Ht2FsenMqP

— In Context (@incontextmedia) March 10, 2022

Still, there's little evidence that Washington's war hawks have gotten the memo. Sasse told Fox that "we need to demonstrate" that "freedom-loving peoples around the world would rather have US leadership than Chinese oppression".

So far, at least, it's unclear how his professed desire to "cut the Russians off from the global economy" might benefit the rest of the globe.

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