WASHINGTON — The United States has leveraged control of the global financial system for decades to influence other countries. The dollar-centered architecture provides Washington significant power, though its reach has limits.
Once viewed as neutral plumbing for international commerce, the system has become explicitly political. The U.S. has weaponized financial tools—freezing assets, tracking transactions, severing access to dollar-denominated banking—to pursue foreign policy goals.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, American officials accelerated this approach. They used financial tracking to monitor terrorist networks and disrupted funding sources tied to extremist groups.
Christopher Farrell and Abraham Newman, authors of "The American Way of Economic War," argue that U.S. control of critical financial chokepoints—from SWIFT messaging systems to dollar settlement networks—gives Washington unparalleled coercive capacity.
The postwar multilateral order, built by Washington and its allies, underpins the global economy. The U.S. has served as its guarantor, deriving benefits: expanded markets for American goods and services, and a central role for its financial system in global transactions.
But the system's stability rests on the absence of alternatives. As rival powers develop new payment networks and de-dollarization accelerates, that foundation erodes. Multiple countries and blocs are now actively constructing parallel financial infrastructure—bilateral trade settlement in local currencies, new regional clearing houses, digital currency projects—designed to reduce dependence on American-controlled channels.
