Posted originally on May 17, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Some claim that the entire strength of the dollar is oil, which backed it after the gold standard fell. I know you said that was a convenient theory, and some now claim Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia is Petrodollar 2.0. You managed money for OPEC and were even in an OPEC meeting, so who better to address this issue than you? I was at your 1985 conference in Princeton, and there were all the Arab nations attending in their white robes, while the Hasidic Jews were attending from the NY garment industry in their black garb. That was an eye-opening conference. So my question is, does oil have any basis for supporting the dollar, or is this another conspiracy theory, like gold going up with inflation?
Yours truly
SM
BTW, Anyone who refuses to interview you is part of the Deep State propaganda.
REPLY: Sam, it’s good to hear from you. You bring up old memories. We have grown old together. If I recall, you were there with your father. I remember when he died. To start with, the percentage of world trade attributed to oil and petroleum products is approximately 8-10% based on the 2022 data. Merchandise Trade in 2022 globally totaled around $25 trillion (WTO data). Of that, crude oil and refined petroleum product exports worldwide were estimated to be between $2.2 and 2.5 trillion (depending on price fluctuations and trade volumes). This includes contributions from OPEC, which are only 40% of crude exports, and non-OPEC exporters like the U.S., Russia, and Canada.
Therefore, if we take the $2.5 trillion and filter out OPEC, this comes to $1 trillion. Now let’s look at just Saudi Arabia, with Nixon’s secret deal (memo) made in 1974 was a negotiation not to support the dollar, but to deal with the Oil Embargo of 1973. Saudi Arabia’s annual oil sales can be measured in both volume (barrels) and monetary value (revenue), which fluctuates based on production levels, OPEC+ agreements, and global oil prices. Even if we look at the numbers from 1974, OpPEC was only about 13% ($112 billion) of world merchandise trade ($846 billion). This significant share was a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, during which OPEC member countries imposed an embargo and drastically increased oil prices, leading to a quadrupling of oil revenues.
Saudi Arabia typically exports 6.5–7.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and petroleum products. In 2023, Saudi Arabia’s oil revenue was estimated at $211 billion (based on ~7 million bpd and ~$80/barrel). This means that Saudi Arabia’s total petro sales amount to .0084% of world trade. The Petrodollar 2,0 is sophistry and just another conspiracy theory. If they priced all the oil in yuan, it would not alter the world economy.
Given the number of emails pouring in on this subject and people claiming Trump’s trip is Petrodollar 2.0 or whatever, I will lay out the truth. This appears to come from the perpetual dollar bears who never look outside the United States and constantly forecast the demise of the dollar since the 1970s. Why anyone listens to them shows that the old saying fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! They have been wrong for more than 50 years. They never look at the facts and have ZERO understanding of international investment flows.
Yes, we were all dealing with OPEC money in Geneva during the Wild ’80s. That is where all the OPEC money was being managed. Even the Saudi oil minister had a house in Gstaad, Switzerland. That’s where I learned to ski, besides attending exciting parties. Yes, I even participated in OPEC meetings by phone. They would put me on the speaker box. So, I think I know more from the inside out rather than cooking up theories from the outside. This is all tied into this de-dollarization theory as well. I will try to put this together ASAP.
Posted originally on Apr 28, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has launched a new employment program as the nation braces for thousands to return home amid America’s deportation campaign. BBVA Research believes there are around 4.1 Mexican nationals illegally residing in the US, accounting for around 37% of the total undocumented population. Sheinbaum’s new proposal has been met with much criticism by the Mexican people, as they believe the government abandoned rural areas long ago.
The Conexión Empresarial Paisano platform is listing 63,880 new job openings through 220 companies across all 32 states. The current plan is to provide 50,000 of these new openings to people deported or willing to return from the United States. “Mexico wants them to know they are welcome and that they can find dignified, well-paying work,” said Francisco Cervantes Díaz, president of the CCE, to Síntesis.
Salaries are pennies in comparison to US minimum wage, although the cost of living in Mexico is drastically less. Operational roles will begin with a monthly salary between $424 and $843, while tech jobs will earn between $800 and $1,600 monthly. The average cost of living in Mexico for a single person is around $1,300 per month, according to some estimates, with a family of four averaging a bit beneath $3,000. One-bedroom rentals range from $329-$563 monthly, while a three-bedroom could cost upward of $990. Naturally it is cheaper to live outside major cities, as monthly housing costs in places like Monterrey or Mexico City are much higher.
It is clear to see why people fled Mexico for a better life in the United States, with even the lowest paying part-time jobs offering more. Based on 2024 data from BBVA Research, 35% of Mexicans fell in the “working poor” category, which is a historic low. Yet, in 2022 43.5% of the population lived in poverty. The average person earns a mere $373 monthly or 7,441 pesos.
It will be difficult for someone earning a living in the US on the USD to return to a nation offering a fraction of the pay in pesos. Millions were sending dollars back to their families in Mexico, aiding the Mexican economy in general. People are justifiably upset that the government is now offering jobs to people who have already chosen to flee the nation, believing this is merely political virtue signaling.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/al-gores-phony-climate-alarmism-exposed/Al Gore’s Phony Climate Alarmism Exposed Al Gore’s Phony Climate Alarmism Exposed by Guest Contributor Mar. 23, 2025 12:20 pm Guest post by Hollywood film director Joel Gilbert In my new film, The Climate According to AI Al Gore, I expose the foundational lies of climate science of Al Gore, the godfather of the climate change movement. Because of Gore, today, governments worldwide spend billions on carbon dioxide reduction policies. It all began in 1992 when Gore published his climate emergency manifesto, Earth in the Balance, where he claimed that carbon dioxide was dooming the planet and called for environmental control to become “the central organizing principle for civilization.” Then, in 2006, with the release of his film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s climate change movement exploded. Three Trump Policies That Have Americans Rethinking Their Retirement Watch the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3CcBC5Q2OY&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ Al Gore admitted he was no scientist. The source Gore cited for his climate alarmism was his Harvard professor, Roger Revelle. Gore cited an unnamed course he took from Revelle in the fall semester of 1969. To get some answers, I went to the University of California San Diego where Roger Revelle’s lifelong papers are stored. First, I discovered that the course Gore took from Revelle at Harvard was called “Human Populations”, and was all about world population growth. Gore scored a “C” in the class. There was absolutely nothing about the climate or atmospheric science. Next, I reviewed Revelle’s numerous articles and interviews over 40 years and discovered that Revelle did not agree with Gore’s theories about greenhouse gases, global warming or climate change. Yet Al Gore credited Revelle for his extreme apocalyptic environmental positions, which Gore repeatedly called “a spiritual crisis”. So where did Al Gore’s climate science really come from? In early 1971, after serving only four months in Vietnam as a journalist, Gore applied to the Vanderbilt Divinity School, a draft dodgers’ haven, to cut short his time in service. It was at Divinity School that Gore studied with radical environmental preachers, and where the reading list included a popular 1940s environmental cataclysm book called Our Plundered Planet which maintained humanity was destroying the planet. My analysis of the book reveals that Gore borrowed heavily from Our Plundered Planet to write his 1992 manifesto, Earth in the Balance. However, in order to secularize his apocalyptic religious vision of a “climate emergency,” Gore credited his Harvard professor Roger Revelle. Had Gore told the truth, namely that he just rewrote the apocalyptic ravings of the whacky Our Plundered Planet book, Gore’s climate alarmism would have been dismissed as unacceptable and absurd. Researching Al Gore’s greenhouse gas theory revealed what the media will never say: that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant or a bad gas. In fact, carbon dioxide is our friend. Without it, life on Earth would not be possible. As humans, we release it every time we exhale. Carbon dioxide is the food of nearly all plants on earth. We need more carbon dioxide, not less. More carbon dioxide would result in more crops, more food yield, and the greening of the deserts. Earth’s atmosphere contains only 370 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That’s just .0037 percent. Not even one percent! Even if its concentration were tripled, carbon dioxide would still be miniscule. It is the sun, volcanoes, the tilt of the earth’s axis, water vapor, sunspots, clouds, and ocean cycles, that affect world temperatures, not carbon dioxide. I also learned that the only scientists who agree with climate change theories are those dependent on government funding. Universities and green organizations also reap financial benefits from climate panic. They are all in effect being paid by the government to agree. Why don’t the simple facts about carbon dioxide take hold? Unfortunately, today’s climate movement has taken on the characteristics of a religion. And, religions don’t worry too much about facts. It’s a belief system. Mass movements can rise and spread, without belief in a god, but never without belief in a devil. That’s why people who disagree with climate change are treated as heretics, they are evil, and deserve to be punished. I concluded that “climate change” today is merely the latest scam with the same socialist solutions that Americans would never vote for: central planning and wealth redistribution. It’s really all an assault on freedom and prosperity to try to stop the existence of the free market system. This is because Marxists are furious that free markets have achieved wealth for common workers and want to reverse this economic success to validate Marxism. In my film, I demonstrate that Al Gore pushed his climate alarmism theories to try to garner political support. He felt the environmental issue was a popular one that crossed all class lines and could get him into the White House – and the rest is history. Please check out my new film at: The Climate According to AI Al Gore. Hollywood film director Joel Gilbert is president of Highway 61 Entertainment.
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