Photis Lysandrou, "Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It" (Policy Press, 2025)

Welcome to the new books network. Welcome to new books network. My name is Sachi Kumar Sundaram. I'm a senior lecturer in foreign policy and security at City, St. George's University of London. I'm also the chair of the Global South Focus of the International Studies Association. And here at City, I direct the Global Disorder Center. Today we have Professor Fautist Lysandre, whose new book, "Dollar Dominance," "Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It from Bristol University Press." That was published in 2025. I very much enjoyed reading the book and I highly recommend it. Book to young and established scholars who would look to understand the meaning of dollar and its role in world politics and an international political economy. Before we get into the details, Professor Fautist, can you tell us about yourself and why you wrote this book? Thank you for your opportunity to talk about my book. I'm a research professor here at City, St. George's. I'm co-director of the City University Political Economy Reserve Center. My research interests are in the political economy of global finance and the issue of dollar dominance today is very much part of the global political, the global financial landscape. Why I came to write this book is my reaction to the stream of predictions about the coming decline of dollar dominance that turned into a flood following the Russia's invasion of the Ukraine in 2022. And although it's a very much desired objective that the BRICS group of countries de-dollarized the global financial system, that wishful thinking cannot substitute for the harsh reality that the dollar will remain secure, its insatiable position will remain secure for a long time to come. And the essence of the book is to explain why it will remain dominant for a long time to come and what must be done to challenge it. And that is why the book is a fascinating intervention into the existing debates both within the scholarly circle on the end of the dollar, but also in a punditry and journalistic debates that we often see in the financial times, for example, that the end of dollar. And your book effectively challenges that argument with detailed theoretical and empirical arguments. So much foot-for-thought for our conversation today. Before we start, the world is seeing a huge disorder, particularly in the Middle East, with what is happening in Iran crises. And the core argument of your book, if it can be summarized, is that instability in the world reinforces dollar dominance. So presumably, your argument will be that Iran crises helps to strengthen the dollar, which goes against the grain of many scholars who predict that this marks yet another instance of dollar being lost in its dominance, would you agree that Iran crises is actually reinforcing dollar dominance and if so, why? The general point I made in my book, as regards the connection between global turbulence, disorder and dollar dominance, the key link it runs through the huge flows of international financial flows, that really need search for say parba, the search for say, it's the foreign investor flight to safety that is key to perpetually reinforcing dollar dominance, particularly in times of heightened crisis and search teams on. That was the case following the Russia's invasion on Ukraine. It was the case following the COVID era and it was even the case following great financial crisis of 2007/08 when people predicted a decline of American power on the dollar and in fact the reverse was the case. And I believe and we saw that again following Trump's Liberation Day Tariff program unveiled on April 2nd, 2025. That episode really did see an upsurge in predictions of a coming dollar, a declining dollar dominance, which has not happened on the contrary. When the foreign exchange or the 14th survey conducted by the Bank of International Assetsment, the 14th survey or daily foreign exchange turn over, it showed that and that survey was launched April 1st, a day before Donald Trump's Liberation Day Tariff. When the results were published in September, late September 2025, it showed that foreign exchange turn over had risen by 2 trillion from 7.5 to 9.6 trillion and the dollar's position had actually strengthened from 88% to 89.5%. While other currencies like the Eurone Zone saw a decline and while the Remimbee saw modestly increased to 8.5%, this added to 100%. That's great. So this brings back to a fundamental question, what explains the foundations of dollar dominance? In the past, in the post-war period, foundations lay squarely in the physical realm of production and international trade. Since then, the US's position in world trading production has declined relatively and I emphasized the word relative because the US is still a very large economy. But the foundations of the dollar's dominance have moved from the physical realm of production to the financial realm of capital market stocks and international portfolio flows. So it is because at a time when the world's capital markets are now nearly three types, the size of world GDP, whereas the 30 years go they run apart. At a time when the capital markets are growing to a position where they heavily dominate the world's production base, it is the US's commanding share of those capital markets. So there was 45% of world equity and world bond stocks that underpins dollar's dominance. The link between the two dollar's dominance in the currency sphere and the US dominance in the capital market sphere being the heavy involvement of foreign, private and foreign official institutional investors in the USA, in the US capital market. That is fascinating. This connects very well with the previous point you made on flight to safety and how this enormous increase in capital market really is a modern phenomenon. And you say dominance of the United States, particularly the American dollar, in capital market, what do you mean by capital market? Can you elaborate a little bit now so that we can better understand on this connections between flight to safety on the one hand, the expansion, the three times expansion of other worlds shared compared to the GDP and the sort of foreign institutional investors who play an important role. So can we unpack this notion of what you mean by capital market? The capital market is basically divided into the equity markets which are shares in major corporations and the bond markets which are credit instruments. In the bond markets you have on the supply side governments together with corporations and the equity side of course it's corporations. So the capital markets in terms of supplies, what you'll see is that corporations and governments are increasingly dependent on issuing these securities, these financial claims on their future income streams in order to facilitate their continued continuity of investment, production, service provision. For that to be possible, for this growth of capital markets to become possible, then these be on the demand side, institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies that are soft, who need to hold these liabilities of governments and corporations in order to meet their own liabilities to clients, to their clients. So what you have what you have been for the capital market, which is why it's coming in size is that you have It's like I think we should bring it here It's it's as if the corporations and governments issuing securities these equities and bonds on Supply side and pension funds insurance companies on the demand so it's as if they're colonizing the future in order To meet the financial pressures and constraints of the present so the future has been in a sense Transformed into giant warehouse where governments and corporations can deposit their liabilities until their redemption and Where pension funds and insurance companies and even Other institutional investors can hold those liabilities up to meet their own liabilities as and when they thought you Mm-hmm, and that is that is not confined to The present it it had a long history as well But what is so unique about the American sort of interventions and the American dollar? Yeah, that is actually underwriting all these Levels with which institutional investors can actually meet these liabilities. It's true dollar The sheer size of the US capital market is the answer to your question Currently if we take equity and bond stocks, they're in it They're close to 300 trillion That's nearly three times Well GDP is going by last year's figures of 110 trillion The US on its own accounts for an average of 45% of the equity and bond stocks So the US capital market is huge compared to any other market Not only is it huge It's also fairly integrated It's integrated because you have universal Application or rule of law You have in addition to a strong legal infrastructure You have a very strong governance and transparency structure There are same tax laws and in solency and contract laws across the US And on top of that and this is key is the homogeneity factor Endowed by the fact that all US securities government bonds Corporal bonds corporate equity have the same currency denomination So the US capital market is not only huge It's also homogenous. It's a huge dollar market with depth with liquidity And that is the source of attraction of so many of the world's large institutional Yes, that is an important argument Given that today we see Donald Trump Effectively undermining all those bases of rule of law Legal infrastructure, transparency, tariffs, and tax laws And everything is up for grabs because of the Trump administration Nevertheless, we can agree that the trust is undermined in many different spheres Particularly with the rise of the United States under Donald Trump You're arguing that this dollar dominance with the United States is still strong Despite the fact that Donald Trump is wrecking it, wrecking the trust So there is no connection in some ways or there is a connection that could be elaborated on On the one hand we see that trust is getting undermined Yes On the other hand, this has got no impact whatsoever On the size Correct And the functioning of dollar How so and can you please elaborate on that You're absolutely right The argument that the loss of trust will be fatal to dollar dominance Became particularly pronounced after Donald Trump's unbealing obvious liberation date Tarot program You are right that Donald Trump's erratic policies both internal to the US and externally Have undermined trust in his presidency, in his second presidency And many commentators, including many experts, have seized on this fact to warn of a coming end to dollar dominance My position is that they are wrong Trust has nothing to do with the current foundations of dollar dominance Because it is not trust but gravity The force of gravity that underpins dollar dominance Whatever Trump's actions However much for an investor's dislike Disapprove of those actions They will not pull their investment out of the US capital market Because of the sheer weight and gravitational force of that market Let me repeat The dollar capital market is large It's homogenous and it has mass It has mass because the strength of its legal and government infrastructure Helped to solidify the prices and hence value storage capacities of US securities This aspect of the fact, this aspect that the US capital market Is huge, homogenous and has mass Is Something that is irresistible Paws foreign investors irresistible into their breaks Who are these foreign investors? They are large pension pucks, they are large insurance companies They're sovereign wealth funds They are foreign central banks They go into the US capital market because it allows Safe storage of huge pools of funds It allows them to diversity by those funds across a wide risk return spectrum And Crucially the dollar market allows them to move large pools of funds across different securities According to circumstances freely cost efficiently Without any barriers You put all these elements together And there is no way that foreign investors will abandon the dollar market On a scale necessary to weaken the dollar's international dominance So I repeat trust Is being undermined But there is no link between trust and dollar's dominance today Yeah, that has to be made absolutely And that makes for an innovative intervention Right and the flight to safety about how pension funds Insurance company foreign central banks Increasingly resort to the United States and the American dollar Despite the fact or despite knowing that Donald Trump is erratic and unbelievable The things that he's doing is just not sustainable in the long run Even ever the less they still go back to Dollar and your argument is it is not because of Falling or rising trust to the United States because of the gravitational pull of the size and mass that the that the dollar has This this then brings in an interesting puzzle or the or the question is If dollar has that much of a gravitational pull because of its size We also see arguments that Other countries like bricks Trying to stand up against dollar and creating their own institutional space Um or the euro for example trying to stand Um, what what would your challenge be to those who believe that the the gravitational pull of the dollar is undermined today in a long run Through alternative other institutions such as bricks or or China or um or or the euro The the point is there is no alternative to the dollar as things stand in terms of another currency Haven't behind it a capital market of the size depth homogeneity of mass Agbon and bass as as the dollar Until another currency meets these criteria Then that currency won't be in a position to pull foreign investors out of the dollar's gravitational field Let's look at the currencies now The euro is the second largest currency area after dollar But the problem with the euro capital uh with the capital markets behind the euro the problem with that is that it's highly fragmented Despite the fact that the euro The EU's capital markets the euro zones capital markets share the same currency They nevertheless continue to operate to their own local rules contract uh Tax rules and so so it's fragmented this fragmentation inhibits Large foreign institutional investors for making the substantial investments in the eurozone because they can't diversify, they can't trade across different securities freely. A good example of that is Norway's oil fund, one of the largest sold-in world funds in the world. Over the past 10, 15 years it's been reducing its exposure to the eurozone capital market, substantially, and moving funds to the US, citing the reason, as its reason, the fragmentation of the eurozone capital market. So that's the eurozone. Now let's go to the BRICS countries. The BRICS country, the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and the others that recently joined and their allies are a powerful force in world trade and into a world production. No doubt about that. And as there are many competitors believe that this should reflect in the currency system. This line of thinking is an acronistic. It belongs to the past. It was the case all through the 19th century, right, right up to the last quarter of the 20th century. It was true that a currency position in the currency hierarchy was determined by its position in world trade production. So in the 19th century, if the pound sterling being dominant and then from in between the wars and then after the World War II in particular, the US dollar. But now, trade and production have very little bearing on our currency's position in the international currency system. If we take the foreign exchange turn over the figure of 9.6 trillion, this is the world's largest financial line. Only 5% of that volume has any bearing on trade, foreign direct investment, or any other real sector activity. And what's the proof of that? Only 5% of the foreign exchange transactions that daily foreign exchange transactions are accounted for by non-financial customers and other smarts and national corporations. So you can see why the BRICS currencies have such a low share of daily foreign exchange turn over. There are in MIMBY, as I mentioned, only accounts for 8.5% or out of 200%. That 8.5% is less than a tenth the dollar share. If we put all the BRICS currencies together, all together with all other emerging market economy currencies, the total comes to 27%. Out of the 9.6 trillion. 27%. That's less than a third of the dollar share on its own. So you see, there is no challenge to the dollar dominance in the foreseeable future. Not from the euro and not from the BRICS currencies. And if that's go back to the euro to repeat this, the euro's position, I've mentioned this before, is actually going backwards. In 2010, the euro's share of foreign exchange turnover was 39%. By 2025, the last to come, it had fallen to 28.5%. So the euro share of daily foreign exchange turn up is actually all. And as a reflection of the fact that the eurozone's capital markets remain much smaller than the US capital markets and are more frontman. And I find this argument that the disconnect between the historical understanding of the connection between trade and correction on the one hand and currency system that followed is at a break today because there is no connection between trade and production on the one hand and the currency system because your argument is to be see a new way of understanding how capitalism is working as opposed to historically. In the sense, there's a connection between trade and production on the one hand and the currency system. Today, we see something substantially different here. And on that condition, then we see that dollar is effectively dominant. There is no other currency with size depth and homogeneity that can match the dollar. Nevertheless, your book also talks about how do we confront this challenge? That is, can you elaborate on what are the things that you see as a way to confront this really strong gravitational pull of the dollar? In my book, I end the section arguing that the only possible challenge for the foresight in decades that must come from Europe and Europe. But for that to happen, there's got to be certain reversals of policy in the Eurozone area. Number one and priority is that the Eurozone government should agree to a proposal to have a joint Eurozone government bond. It doesn't exist at the moment. You have German government bonds being used as very good collateral as very good, say, instrument, but it's small in size, the German government bond market. Unless you have a joint Eurozone government bond to serve as the same table as it. As a benchmark for measuring risk on all other securities across the Eurozone, you're missing a crucial element that will tie the Eurozone capital markets into a unified entity. That's number one. Number two, secondly, as I mentioned before, the Eurozone capital markets remain fragmented because of differences in terms of sovereignty, contract laws and so on. Now, the European Commission launched in 2015 its capital market union project, a project aimed at establishing true capital market. Very little progress has been made on this from. For example, I mentioned the differences regarding contract and so on, seeing tax laws, but there's also opposition to a joint financial authority that would establish common financial standards and so on. This opposition has to be overcome. There has to be a genuine capital market union, not just with a single currency, but also with the same financial rules and standards, the same rules of contract, same banking laws, and so on. So, another hurdle that has to be overcome is the Europe's corporations continue to rely far more heavily on bank loans to meet their external debt commitments rather than on bonds. 80% roughly is of their external debt commitments I met through back loans, 20% bonds, for the US is the exact reverse. So, we need the apart from other considerations of financial efficiency. The key reason to get the European corporate funding model, move closer to the American version, is to strengthen the financial base of the Eurozone. This has got to be understood. If this doesn't happen, if we don't move in this direction of strengthening the Eurozone's capital markets in a long-aligned such a mention, the Euro is in a dangerous position of being heavily dependent on the dollar. And if Donald Trump decides to lean on the Federal Reserve and get it to stop its central bank's popular arrangements with the European Central Bank, the Eurozone financial sector and its banking sector in particular will be in serious trouble. That is, yeah. And that says a lot about the strong connections of weaponized interdependence, the argument about how Europe is on the one hand believing that it has its own strategic autonomy and it can formulate foreign and economic policies, according to its values and so on. Nevertheless, it is still tightly connected to the dollar. and the ways in which how much of the American influence still penetrate the European financial architecture is stark. This brings back to another question which coming from the global south, I've always had is that if euro is not able to match dollar dominance and to have an alternative because of its problems of fragmented eurozone on the one hand and its inability to issue government bonds because much of it relies on bank lawyers and so on, how can global south countries, for example India or African countries or Latin America, how can they effectively manage the dependency they have on the international financial architecture underwritten by dollar? And it presumably you will say that they just cannot match it. What sort of policy options do you have for these countries in the global south, do they have to align towards more strategic autonomy argument towards euro or do they have to find alternative ways of managing American power? Very difficult to problems facing the global south. Firstly, because it's been extremely difficult for any group of countries, anywhere in the global south to do what the Western Europe has done and form a common currency. It has been considered in various areas, for example the Merck's or Group considered currency integration that came to nothing. The Gulf Corporation Council in the Middle East, they considered the Gulf Dinar in the early 2000s that came to nothing and ASEAN over in Asia, there was consideration of a common currency, came to nothing. So the problem is when you have your own currencies, you are going to be, it's like having little boats on a Pacific Ocean and very hard to weather the storms, extremely hard. So one thing, what they are doing now when they trade with each other and with China and they are using their own currencies or they are using the Remimbi, that gives them a certain degree of shelter from the dollar in terms of the trade arrangements and so on. But it doesn't mean they are independent on dollar when it comes to the global financial cycle process, global monetary policies changing in line with what the Federal Reserve is doing and so on. It's a manifestation of that, that it's still the case that some 65 currencies are leaked to the dollars in one way or the other. Even China that is the lead currency amongst the Bricks country, nevertheless China holds a normal amount of US Treasury bonds, why in order to keep its own currency within the target range of the dollar. They are saying we are Japan, the yen and so on. So it's going to be extremely difficult and you see the difficulties when you go to Latin America for example, difficulties facing the ultra-entina that were always proud to try and keep its currency, the peso would keep the link from the dollars they did in the early 2000s when they left the currency board. But now the problems are mounting and there has been serious discussion of actually dollarizing the Argentine that actually switching to the dollar. I hope it doesn't happen but there's a real risk and if that does happen by the way, it's what I call dollar colonization. Yeah and in particular form of neo-coronization and we see that on the one hand on the physical realm there is an actual interventionism and colonization or the imperial narratives that comes back again and again that what's happening in Venezuela, what's happening in Iran and so on. But many people miss the financial dollar colonization that you talk about and in the financial realm it is much more serious where at least in the physical realm there is an appearance or resemblance of autonomy, ability to rhetorically assert positions and policies and talk about multilateralism and so on. In the dollar realm or in the financial realm they are totally colonized. Would you say are there any room available to confront this total colonization? If countries like the domestic emerging market economies, the larger ones, if they keep or they can hold dollar of US Treasury bonds as reserves, that then gives them certainly leeway in terms of policy making. But the countries that the smaller countries, the poorer countries that cannot accumulate reserves, what they have to do is keep an eye on US monetary policy in follow. And it's an example, why do they have to do that? Well I write to the beginning of this discussion, this interview. We spoke about a flight to safety of the US but where does a lot of that money come from? Where is it pulled out and the answer is DMEs. Whenever there's a period of turbulence, uncertainty of crisis, you will have vast amounts pulled out of the smaller emerging market currencies. And then goes to the US. That will then help the US conduct policy during the crisis. But it constrains the ability of emerging market countries to conduct policies when there is capital flight. There's downward pressure on their currencies as consequence of the flight, which then leads to rupture and inflation. And I really come back to the problems of the Iran crisis now. It's going to be the emerging market economies that are going to be hurt badly because if their oil will depend on it's going to be devastating for their domestic economies, they're going to suffer high inflation. When you add capital flight to safety on top of that, put these factors together and it will hit into very worrying times for smaller economies and their currencies. Yeah. Very important point, given that there is a concern to study disorder crises in uncertainty. But understanding from your argument, disorder is actually good for the United States because there's a lot of capital flight from smaller and poorer countries that goes away from these countries when there's a crisis or disorder towards the United States because of its gravitational pull according to your argument. And how does it acquire this general understanding at the surface level when we see disorder, uncertainty and crises? People say, well, scholars also say that this marks the end of dollar. But if disorder is actually enabling the strength of the dollar and enabling the strength of the United States power at the cost of smaller and medium sized countries and poorer countries. And there is a cycle or a vortex that connects back all the time to American power. Well, how can we understand this? I come back to the point that the shared size, death, mass of the US capital market acts as a shock absorber for the US. If there is uncertainty, if the dollar's exchange rate fluctuates against other currencies, you have movements within the US capital market. Movements of funds out of corporations that have been adversely affected by a crisis towards corporations that benefit from any disorder. But these movements, because they occur within the dollar universe, there is no underlying negative impact on the underlying economy, the real economy. So the sheer mass size of the capital market enables the US to absorb shocks in the way other areas, other currencies, other countries cannot. I wouldn't say that crisis is good for the US. What I'm saying is that crisis are more easily absorbed by the US than other areas. Because crises do affect certain constituencies in the US, working people and so on, while at the same time benefit in others. And if you want to see how Iran crisis is leading to a distribution of costs and benefits, well there are costs to the US consumers at the petrol pump and so on, definitely. But you look at the benefits to the US banks. JP Morgan, Chase Manhan and Justin Nounz, bumper profits, in fact profits which have reached enormous levels because of their ability to speculate on the currency markets to take advantage of the fluctuations. Yeah. So in the US you see the oil companies making profits, the banks making profits and of course Donald Trump's family and associates making profits because they were able to invest in certain financial instruments just before the end of the war and so on. So we don't know the motives behind the US is really war on Iran. We clear motives, they keep changing. But what we do know is that the rest of the war for the rest of the world, there are no upside benefits to the costs which are huge. While for the US there are certain upside benefits that offset the cost. Let's be clear about that. Yeah, our benefits are the yes. And that ultimate, when I meant global disorder benefits the United States, I should, I'm talking about the small oligarchic circles in the United States, including private corporations and high network individuals and others who continue to benefit from these crisis. It's been shown now. And working class or the common people have always been at the deceiving end of the problem, no matter what. This brings us to the last two theoretical questions that is central to your book. One is, and you mentioned that in the beginning, colonization of the future. Much of the strength of the dollar and capital flight and people who go back to the United States in terms of flight to safety. And the strength of pension, pension funds in children's companies and others who are still resorting to the United States and American dollar, the common denominator that connects all of them is a particular understanding of the future. And you say, you all view about the colonization of future. Can you elaborate in real terms? What is it? In the past, the dependence of government's corporations on the capital markets was either temporary, large, but temporary, for example, issuing bonds to finance railway project, or issuing bonds to finance war. And so, there was very little dependence on the capital markets in the past to the extent that we see today. Today we have dependence on the capital markets, large and permanent, because of the rising financial pressures bearing down on governance corporations that are today the major supplies of goods and services in domestic economies. In the case of corporations, the pressures I'll do with intensified competition, rapid technological change and so on. In the case of governments, demographic change is a big driver. Population agent, rising dependency ratios, which then puts real pressures on government finances. And there's only so much they can tax. So they're increasingly resulted to bond issuance, not only at rising volumes of bonds, but also lending in maturities. So we now have government as bonds that stretch from not only to 10 years, but also 20, 30, and even 50 years, but which we introduce, but for example by France and Italy during the COVID crisis. So what does they do? They're issuing securities bonds on the debt side, equities also. What do they do? They issue in these instruments, which are claims on future income rates. So governments corporations are raising money today, cash today, but repaying at intermittent points in the future. Who's holding these claims? The bonds and equities. In the main, it is large institutional investors like pension funds. You have to meet the lip commitments to the people who retire or need health insurance and so on. Now pension funds, institutional investors can hold a variety of assets. They can also hold real estate, cash, gold. But the exigencies of their role as intermediaries means that at all times, the bulk of their asset holdings have been a form of securities, equities and bonds. Assets that combine safe store of value with liquidity and tradeability. So between them, this is what I mean, that between governments and corporations, issuing securities on the one hand, pension funds insurance companies holding securities on the other, between them. They are colonizing the future and exing the future as an adept space to take the financial pressures of the present. Now a lot of people say, well, how can you colonize the future? Turn in spatialize it. If the future is unknown, if it's unknown, there's uncertainty. If there's uncertainty, there is risk. We'll all of these factors, how then can you spatialize the future? And my argument is that within you constraints introduced, like shareholder primacy, transparency, and so on, what's happening with all these measures and constraints being imposed on security issue in organizations, corporations, and governments? What is happening is that while uncertainty and risk can never be eliminated, they can be sufficiently managed as to make the future inheritable. That's what's happening. If that wasn't happening, we would not see security stocks grow to three times the size of what you'd be being. The only reason they can carry on growing is because of the new structures in place, which brings me to why the US is so absolutely dominant as the supply security, because not only on the supply side, do you have the US corporations more dependent on capital markets for their funding needs, but it's also because in the US, the constraints and organizations to ensure regular cash flow and the solidity of securities is most advanced. It's the country where shareholder primacy is really taken hold across the whole domain. The whole marketplace, financial marketplace. You have a certain solidity, which means these stocks can grow and they will continue to grow. We are, the world population continues to grow, primarily not through aging. We have the pressures of climate change. We have all of these pressures, which means that the world's capital markets will continue to expand because the future will continue to be colonized to take the rise and absorb a commodity, the rise in financial pressures of the peasants. Have with that will come a continuing strengthen of the dollar. That is really interesting. Discussions that are ongoing currently among different quarters of those who are studying critically of dollar dominance and so on and your work effectively is not only a contribution but really makes an important and a superb intervention into the debate. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed the book and the conversation and this is only a brief 40 minutes of the large interventions and theoretical and empirical interventions that you bring in the book. It was a great talking to you. Thank you very much for this. Thank you very much for your involvement. Thank you for listening to this episode of the new book's network. 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