Putin signed a decree about selling the gas in rubles only
Yesterday, March 31st, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, that the ” unfriendly “ countries must pay for the Russian gas in Russian currency beginning April 1st. The “unfriendly” countries are foreign states that are considered to have taken unfriendly action again Russia. A list of these countries was released by the Russian governments on March 7th, 2022 as follows: Australia, Albania, Andorra, United Kingdom, including Jersey, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, the member states of the European Union, Iceland, Canada, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, San Marino, North Macedonia, Singapore, the United States, Taiwan, Ukraine, Montenegro, Switzerland, Japan.
Photo source: tiendagourmet.co
According to the decree, Russia will continue to supply gas to ‘unfriendly” countries at the same volumes and prices, but only through accounts that must be in Russian banks. If gas suppliers will not follow this order, Moscow can halt the gas contract. On top of that, new proceedings in EUR or USD could be blocked.
The Russian majority state-owned energy corporation Gazprom was doing a study with options to halt gas to suppliers in Europe due to the payment in rubles a couple of weeks ago. Also, Kremlin is considering that all export from Russia will be paid in Russian currency.
On April 1st, the speaker of the Kremlin Dmitrij Peskov clarified the application of the decree:” Does it mean if we don’t have the payment confirmed in rubles that from April 1st we blocked the gas suppliers? No, that is not in the decree. New rules will come into effect after the middle of April and Gazprom will be cooperative with its clients to implement them.” Russia can abandon this decree if the situation will change, but now, the Russian currency is for us the best, and the most trustworthy option, Dmitrij Peskov said.
What’s that mean for the world? Since 1971, when U.S. President Richard Nixon ends the convertibility of U.S. dollars {USD} to gold, so U.S. currency was not backed by a physical commodity, but only by the government that issued it. Basically, USD became the fiat money. Despite that, U.S. dollars were still accepted as the global currency, because of the oil and gas trade with it, and that holds the value of USD. If Russia followed by China, India, and Iran stopped trading gas and oil, possibly all commodities and trades, in USD in the global market, that will it have a big impact on the value of USD and Canadian dollars {CAD} as well, because U.S. and Canadian economies are deeply interconnected.
For Canadians this is not very good news, because Canada has a negative trade balance, that means, we bring more products from offshore than we sell, so people in Canada must go deeper into their pockets anytime when they buy any products. Even worse, almost half of Canadian export constitutes Canadian natural resources.
There is one more thing to consider. The USA as an economic superpower and “preserver” of democracy will lose its position in the world at the expense of China. A country that is run by a communist regime will become number one, with all influence around the world. That is a super danger to democracy and human rights, especially in combination with the planned Great Reset. That, we can unfortunately sense in Canada already.
– DB
