Former President Donald Trump has warned that the weakness of the the dollar is turning the United States into a third world country.
He added that a further weakening of the currency would have devastating consequences for the country in an interview with Fox News Business host Larry Kudlow on Aug. 17.
“Our country is going to hell and we’re not going to be the big boy,” President Trump said in the interview. “We have power, but it’s waning. In fact, it’s waning in terms of our currency.”
He further warned that if the dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency, it would equate to more than losing a war, adding that such a thing would have been unthinkable under his presidency.
“We have something that’s very powerful and that’s our dollar. But you take a look at what’s happening to it now with other countries not using it, and you know China wants to replace it with the Yuan, and it was unthinkable with us. Unthinkable. Would never have happened. Now people are thinking about it.”
President Trump emphasized the growing threat from China, adding that it puts the United States in a position of losing its No. 1 economic and military status in the world, especially given the country’s current domestic situation.
“We are already reverting to third world status in many ways. You look at our airports, you look at our terminals, you look at our filthy roads and broken roads and everything else, we’re like a third-world country,” he said.
According to President Trump, the blame lies with the Biden administration, which caused heavy inflation in the country, exacerbated by the termination of new oil drilling and its pivot to “renewable” energy, effectively handing the United States’ dominance as an oil producer back to Russia and Saudi Arabia.
“They cut it off, and again, we were drilling much more. We were a bigger force than Russia and Saudi Arabia individually,” he continued.
President Trump went on to say that by the end of his administration, the United States was within two years of surpassing the production of both countries combined.
“We would have made so much money. We would have been paying off debt, we would have been doing things that nobody’s ever seen this country do,” he continued.
It would have been the first time any president attempted to reduce the U.S. national debt. According to the Treasury’s own calculations, the national debt currently stands at over $32 trillion.
According to President Trump, common sense is lacking in the White House under the current administration, something he aims to rectify if he is able to win next year’s presidential election.
“We have a lot of common sense, and the problem is, they don’t have common sense,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re doing and they’re destroying our country. We’ll turn it around fast.”
The instability of the U.S. economy is starting to show. Not only was Washington’s credit rating downgraded by Fitch Ratings from AAA to AA+ for only the second time in recent history, but sanctions placed on several countries by the United States have added huge amounts of interest after the countries dropped the the dollar as reserve currency.
This further led to BRICS nations creating an alternative to the U.S. SWIFT international bank transfer system, which makes it easier to move away from the dollar.
With with the bloc’s annual summit taking place from Aug. 22 to Aug. 24, it could intensify these efforts.
Trump remains by far the Republican party’s frontrunner. A recent national survey by Fox News shows he maintains his large lead, with over 50 percent of voters supporting his re-election.