Economist Jeffrey Sachs has criticised the United States’ use of the dollar as a geopolitical tool, arguing that Washington has increasingly “weaponised” the currency and that the trend has intensified under US President Donald Trump.
“The US government very unwisely weaponised the dollar. It weaponised it starting around 2002, but it has intensified that tremendously under Trump, who I regard as a very incompetent, unstable and unstrategic person,” Jeffrey Sachs said in an interview with Zakka Jacob, managing editor of Times Now.
“The US government very unwisely weaponised the dollar. It weaponised it starting around 2002, but it has intensified that tremendously under Trump,” Sachs said. He described Trump as an “incompetent, unstable and unstrategic” leader.
Sachs also questioned the idea of India having a strategic partnership with the US, arguing that Washington’s global influence is declining while Asia is emerging as the key centre of economic growth.
“I think the idea that India has a strategic partnership with the United States is the wrong idea. The US is the declining power,” Sachs said. “The real booming part of the world is Asia.”
According to Sachs, India’s economic trajectory and its growing engagement with Asian economies could benefit from closer ties with China. “India is the fastest-growing large economy in the whole world, and it will continue to be so. And closer relations with China are going to help that tremendously,” he said.
Sachs also offered a sharply critical assessment of the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, linking them to what he described as US efforts to maintain global hegemony. “I would say all the wars we have — the wars in the Middle East and the wars in Ukraine — are wars of US hegemony,” he said.
On the Ukraine conflict, Sachs argued that the US had sought to expand its sphere of influence by bringing Ukraine into its orbit. “The idea was that the US would take Ukraine into its orbit,” he said.
Turning to BRICS, Sachs said the grouping represents a broader push towards a multipolar international order and away from a world dominated by a single power.
“BRICS brings the part of the world that says, ‘Look, we just want a non-hegemonic world where the United States, or anyone else, stops bossing everyone else around,’” Sachs said.
He added that BRICS represents “the new multipolar world” and an “anti-hegemonic” and multilateral approach that, in his view, should operate in accordance with the UN Charter.
India Is Fastest-Growing Economy, China Ties Can Help: Economist Jeffrey Sachs
