The largest mining [music] company on

Earth, BHP, quietly started selling its

iron ore to China in Yuan. Not dollars,

Yuan. That's roughly 30% of its iron ore

sales to China processed outside of the

dollar system. 88 million tons of ore

per year. That's 8 to 10 billion worth

of trade [music] off the dollar system.

But here's the part that almost nobody

reported when this happened. BHP didn't

really want to do this. China's state

buyer demanded it and BHP, an Australian

company, one of the five eyes, one of

[music] America's closest military

allies, was forced to agree because when

your biggest customer makes a demand,

you typically meet them where they're

at. Now, 5 years ago, nobody would have

touched a deal like that. [music] A

multi-billion dollar trade deal outside

of the dollar. So, what changed last

year? Now, to answer that, I need to

show you something that has been

invisible to most people their entire

life. There is a machine underneath the

world's money. A working system of

institutions, rails, and rules built up

over the better part of a century. But

you can't see what's happening to the

machine until you understand what it

actually does and why it needs to exist

in the first place. Now, by the end of

this video, you'll see the whole

machine, and you'll know exactly why BHP

just got pulled off the dollar, one

shipload at a time, and most

importantly, what might happen next.

Somewhere at sea right now, a bulk

carrier is hauling 200,000 tons of iron

ore from a mine in Brazil to a steel

mill in China. And this happens [music]

millions of times every single day all

over the world. And almost none of us

ever stop to think about the machinery

that makes this possible because [music]

think about what's actually standing in

the way here. The two parties, Brazil

and China, the company in Brazil, the

company in China, they've never actually

met. They don't share a language. They

don't share a bank. They don't share a

legal system or even a government. The

miner's money sits in a Brazilian bank

in Riaz. The buyer's money in China sits

in a Chinese bank in Yuan. And [music]

the two banks are not connected. You

cannot just transfer money from one to

the other. And before that, whose money

would they even be transacting in? The

Brazilian miner wants to be paid in

their local currency that they can spend

at home and pay their staff. But the

Chinese buyer doesn't have any Brazilian

rias. The buyer has plenty of yuanine,

but the miner has no use for those. He

can't pay his bills in a foreign

currency. In addition, somebody has to

go first, deliver the product or get

paid. Either the seller will ship the

ore and then get paid or the buyer will

send the money and then wait for the

ore. One of them has to trust the other

to deliver. And if they don't, well,

what judge on earth could pull a

Brazilian minor and a Chinese steel

maker into the same courtroom? None. So

on paper, this deal is almost

impossible. And yet it closes every

single day. The money moves, the ore

becomes steel millions of times a day in

every port on every exchange on Earth.

So, here's the question. This whole

video hangs on. What has to exist

quietly in the background for two

strangers who share nothing to be able

to trade anything? So, if we strip away

the flags and the headlines, we'll see

that a global trade system has to do

five things, just five. And here's the

whole list. Number one, [music] it has

to price goods. The world needs a single

yard stick to measure the value of

goods. Say a copper mine in Chile wants

to sell a load [music] of metal to a

factory in Japan. Before they can shake

hands, they have to agree on a price.

But a price in what? The mine counts its

[music] money in Chile and pesos. The

factory counts in Japanese yen. And

neither side measures the world in the

other's [music] currency. Without a

shared unit, every deal starts with an

argument. Should we price it in pesos or

yen or something else? [music] And

nobody can tell a good price from a bad

one because the same ton of copper is a

different number in every currency. One

[music] shared unit ends that argument.

A buyer in Tokyo and a seller in

Santiago look at the same price and know

right away what the metal is worth. So

pricing goods is job number one. Job

number two, move the money. Money has to

move from one bank to the next. Agreeing

on a price is useless if the money can't

get there. And moving money is stranger

than it sounds because nothing physical

actually travels. There's no crate of

cash sailing to China or sailing to

Santiago. So moving money today is just

digits on a screen. One bank's ledger

ticks down and another bank's ledger

ticks up. Now long ago you could settle

a deal by handing something over that

you could weigh and count like gold. You

didn't have to trust anybody because you

could see it and measure it and count

it. But today, the job is to make a row

of digits feel just as safe and final as

metal changing hands. And that's harder

than it sounds because remember, the two

banks are not connected. So, it has to

happen in a series of steps. First, a

message has to be sent. The buyer's bank

sends a secure order to the seller's

bank that says in plain terms, "We are

paying you this much right now." Every

bank in the chain has to read it the

same way and trust it. And second, the

numbers have to move. Since the two

banks hold no account with each other,

the payment hops through a chain of

banks that do. Each one passing it

along, updating its books until it

reaches the seller, and then someone has

to confirm that it's landed. And here's

why that hidden relay matters so much.

The seller is about to load 200,000 tons

of ore onto a ship on nothing but the

promise that those digits will change in

their favor. So they only do so because

they trust the relay to work every time

on time in full. And multiply that by

millions of deals a day and the whole

world economy is resting on it. When the

relay is fast and cheap, trade flows.

But when it's slow and costly, or when

it can be switched off, trade chokes.

And whoever runs that relay quietly

holds the power to decide whose money

moves and whose [music] does not. Now

remember that one because it comes back

to haunt us a little bit later. Job

number three of the financial system is

provide a place for that money to be

parked securely. Countries that sell

more than they buy end up holding a

giant pile of somebody else's money.

Picture Saudi Arabia after a year of

selling oil sitting on hundreds of

billions of dollars. It can't just leave

that cash in a savings [music] account

sitting still. It earns nothing and

slowly loses value to inflation. So, it

lends that money out to earn interest by

buying government bonds or treasuries.

But here's the key. That market has to

be enormous. A country parking hundreds

of billions of dollars needs to know it

can turn those treasuries back into cash

the moment that it wants. It parks its

dollars in treasuries, but it wants that

money back. It needs to get at it. So,

it needs a place to [music] sell them

today or any day to somebody else. And

that place is the secondary [music]

treasury market. Treasuries trade in

secondhand all day, every day. And it

only works if it's huge because a huge

market always has buyers ready. So, a

seller can cash out fast any day [music]

of the week at a fair price. In a small

market, you go to sell and you'll find

that there might not be anybody there to

buy. So job number three [music] is park

excess cash somewhere safe. Okay. Job

number four, it needs to provide trust.

Whatever global financial system we

leverage and rely on, we need to be able

to trust that it's going to do what it

says [music] it does. Parking your money

somewhere safe only makes sense if you

trust where you're parking it. When you

park your savings in government

treasuries, you're counting on exactly

two things. Number one, your money will

not be frozen or seized because [music]

you fell out of favor. Nobody can take

it away from you. And number two, your

money holds its value. A unit handed

back to you in 10 years should still buy

close to what it buys today. And job

number five is freedom. The last job is

to provide freedom of exchange and

freedom of access to your cash whenever

you want it. to take it out of the

country, to swap it for dollars or euros

or gold, whatever you actually need at

any hour in any amount without asking

anybody permission. Money that you can't

move on your own terms is not actually

your money. And nobody parks hundreds of

billions in a place that they're not

sure they can leave. Okay? So, price

goods and services, move cash, park that

cash somewhere you can trust it, and

somewhere that is free. Hold those five

in your head because they're the

scorecard for everything that follows.

When those five jobs are done well,

something quietly powerful happens. The

whole global economy can grow and

prosper. Trade expands, money gets

invested instead of hoarded. And wealth

builds on itself year after year. And

the reason comes down to one word,

predictability. When everybody can count

on the system working tomorrow the way

it works today, they plan ahead. They

commit their money. They build for the

long term. Certainty is what growth is

built on. And this isn't some distant

complicated idea that only economists

understand. It's the exact same thing

your local entrepreneur needs to build a

business in their hometown. Businesses

grow faster in stable countries with

predictable governance and an honest

judicial system. They grow faster when

banks are reliable and contracts hold up

in a court of law. In that environment,

entrepreneurs are comfortable taking

risks to build something amazing because

there's a solid foundation underneath

them. And the global economy is no

different. It needs that same

foundation. Predictable rules, deals

that get enforced, money you can trust

and move. Except there's no world

government to set those rules and no

world court to enforce them. So, the

global financial system has to play that

role instead. And here's the thing, none

of this is theory. The world has run a

system exactly like the one we're using

today before. And we've watched it

break. In the 19th century, the British

Empire did all five jobs for the world,

and it did them very well. The pound was

the yard stick. Goods across the globe

were priced in sterling. London was the

world's bank. [music] In 1912, the city

of London financed more than 60% of all

trade on the entire planet. And for

generations, the pound was as good as

gold. Literally, anybody anywhere could

hand over pounds and receive a fixed

weight of real gold. They could price

it, they could move it, they could park

it, they could trust it, [music] and it

was free. Britain did all five. And on

that foundation, world trade grew for

decades. This was the first great age of

globalization. But then came the sunset.

The First World War drained Britain and

it never managed to rebuild the old

system quite as well. In September 1931,

the promise that had held for

generations ended for good. The Bank of

England simply stopped exchanging

British pounds for gold. Everybody

holding pounds as their safe store woke

up holding something worth a lot [music]

less that no longer converted. Job four

and job five broken [music] in a single

morning. No more trust, no more freedom.

Around that same time, the United States

piled huge new taxes on imports, the

Smoot Howley Act of 1930, and dozens of

countries struck back with their own,

choking off the open trade that the

whole system [music] relied on. One by

one, the five rules stopped being

followed. And the world did exactly what

you'd expect. Once the system stopped

being predictable, fair, and

trustworthy, it pulled back. Between

1929 and 1933, [music]

the value of world trade collapsed by

about 60%. By 1932, the world was

trading at less than 39% of what it had

just four years earlier. That is not a

slow recession. That is the global

economy completely seizing up. [music]

This is obviously what became the Great

Depression. But here's how that story

actually ends and finally ends and it's

the most important part. Once a new

system was finally built, the Brettton

Woods agreement of 1944 with the United

States now doing all five jobs, the

world didn't just merely recover, it

boomed. Between 1950 and 1973, economic

output in many countries doubled or

more. The advanced economies grew four

to 5% [music] every single year, and

trade grew faster still. It was without

question the greatest stretch of rising

prosperity that the world had ever seen.

So the lesson of history is not that the

handoff of currencies ruins us. The

danger, however, lives in the gap in

between. On the far side [music] of that

gap, when finally somebody does those

five jobs again, the world grows richer

than ever. As they say, a valley has a

peak on either [music] side of it. When

the new system was built in 1944, the

United States picked up the torch. And

for about 80 years, it's done all five

jobs better than anybody else in

history. That is the honest reason that

the world runs on dollars. It's not just

habits. It's not some plot. The dollar

does all five jobs. So the world uses

it. It's logical and pragmatic.

But that grip is loosening. And I want

to be specific and I want to be fair

because on some of the five jobs, the

dollar is still miles ahead of any

alternative options. But on others, the

cracks are real. So, let's run the

scorecard and run through all five jobs

once again in the context of the dollar,

right? Job number one, price goods and

services. Still dominant for sure. The

dollar is the world's yard stick. It's

used to price more than 80% of all trade

on the planet and nearly all of the

world's oil. But watch the edges. Watch

the margin and watch how far they're

spreading. 15 years ago, the yuan was

barely used outside of China's own

borders. Almost no central bank held it.

But today, more than 80 central banks

hold some yuan in their reserves. And

it's no longer just China and its close

friends. In 2023, a French energy giant,

Total Energies, from the heart of the

Western Alliance, settled its first

cargo of gas with China in yuan instead

of dollars. And that same year, Brazil,

a G20 economy, agreed to trade with

China directly in yuan. And you already

know the third one because I opened this

video with it. Late 2025, BHP, the

largest mining company on Earth, based

in Australia, one of the five eyes, one

of America's closest military allies,

began selling about 30% of its iron ore

sales to China in Yuan rather than

dollars. 88 million tons of ore per

year, roughly 10 billion. And it didn't

happen once again because BHP wanted

this. China's state buyer demanded it

and BHP was forced to agree. And that's

the part worth noting. China is now a

big enough buyer to push even a close

American ally off the dollar one

shipload at a time. These are not

enemies of the United States hunting for

a workaround. They are G20 members, Five

Eyes members, and American partners

settling real trade in something other

than the dollar, something none of them

would have touched only five years

earlier. Now look, the amounts are still

small, but I pay attention to what

happens on the margin because every

worldchanging trend in history started

at zero. Okay, job number two, move that

money. And this is where the dollar

probably still has its largest

advantage. The main network that banks

used to send payment orders carries the

dollar in about half of all crossber

payments. And it links more than 11,000

banks in over 200 countries. Nothing

else comes close to that kind of reach.

For now, this job is being done so well

by the dollar that no other alternatives

can really compete. However, as we'll

cover in future videos, new [music]

systems are being built, and I expect

that to change. But first, let's get

into job three, park it. Is there a

place that countries can park their

excess somewhere safe? For decades, the

US Treasury Market has done this job

better than anywhere on Earth. This is

the biggest, safest, most liquid place

for a nation to park its savings. They

can park it there. they can take it out.

But lately, countries parking their

money there have grown a bit uneasy. And

the reason is America's debt, [music]

now above $39 trillion. When a country

owes too much money, it becomes less

reliable because a government buried in

debt tends to reach for the same tool

they all do. [music] It prints money to

cover their expenses. And printing money

quietly eats away the value of that

money. The world is watching the United

States edge [music] towards that line.

And that's why by the end of 2025, for

the first time in decades, the world's

central banks held more of their savings

in [music] gold instead of US

treasuries. So sit with that for a

second. It is a big shift. And again,

it's on the margin, but it's changing

quickly. Job [music] number four, trust.

And this one, we have to say in the

American dollar system is [music]

broken. Now, here's a recent fracture.

In 2022, the United States and its

allies [music]

froze about $300 billion of Russia's

reserves after the invasion of Ukraine.

Whatever you think about the reason,

every government on Earth learned the

same lesson that day. Dollars held

inside the American system can be

confiscated. The promise underneath it,

trust that your money is yours and

nobody can take it, no longer holds.

Central banks heard that clearly, which

is exactly why they've been buying gold

at the fastest pace in generations. And

job number five, freedom. Again, broken

for the same reason as trust. The dollar

is still the easiest money to move

around and convert. That remains its

great advantage. But that freeze in 2022

put the same asterisk on this job as the

last one as trust. The freedom to move

your dollars now depends on staying in

America's favor. For a friend, the

dollar is still perfectly free. For

anybody who falls out of line, that

freedom can vanish overnights. And once

every country has watched it happen to

somebody else, they all start asking the

same question. What if that could happen

to me? So, here's the honest scorecard.

On moving money and pricing trade, the

dollar is still miles ahead, though no

longer alone. on parking money. The

market still works, but the foundation

is beginning to strain. In the two jobs

that matter the most, trust and freedom,

the dollar has broken its own promises,

not by accident, but by choice, by using

the system as a weapon. Now, none of

this means the dollar falls tomorrow. It

means the world has finally been given a

reason to look for something else. Now,

let's go back to that ship still hauling

its iron ore across the sea. It was just

a boat, but now we can see the entire

machine underneath it. What is required,

the five jobs that must happen invisibly

for that single deal to close. That is

[music] the whole point of this video.

Not to frighten anybody or tell you that

the dollar is going to crash because

quite frankly, I don't think it's going

to, but to take something that you

[music] have used every day and maybe

never thought once about it and let you

finally see it. see the mechanics that

underpin the system and how fragile they

are when you start breaking the rules.

Because once you see this machine and

you understand the mechanics, then you

can understand what's happening to it

because you can break it up into its

individual parts and assess [music] them

independently. Now, the current system

we use built on the US dollar still does

all five jobs and still does two of

those jobs better than anybody else. But

it has started to break its own rules on

maybe the two that matter the most.

Trust and freedom. Those two now come

with conditions. And you don't need me

to tell you what happens next. You could

watch it yourself in the headlines

[music] that everybody else reads as

noise. A French company paying for gas

in yuan. and Australian miners selling

ore in Yuan. [music]

Central banks holding more gold than US

treasuries for the first time in

decades. Now you'll see them for what

they really are, small [music] moves in

a slow, quiet game. So what does this

mean for you? Sitting so far from any of

it, it means more than it seems. Because

everything that you own is counted in

money in some central unit. Your

savings, your paycheck, your home, your

retirement, it all sits on top of this

machine. And when it works, prices hold

and your money keeps its value while you

sleep. That's not a gift. It's the quiet

output of a system doing its five jobs.

And history is blunt about what happens

when that system phrase. The last time

the world went through a handoff just

like this, trade fell by 23. And the

result was the Great Depression. The

danger has never been the new system.

The danger is the gap in between two

systems. the valley between two peaks

and we may be living in the early part

of exactly such a transition right now

but this is not a doom story and I and I

wouldn't put that out there because

history's other lesson is the hopeful

one every one of these gaps ended and

the far side of each brought one of the

greatest booms the world had ever seen a

valley has a peak on either side of it

the work required and the reason we do

this is so that we know which side of

that slope we're standing on the one

going down to the one going back up. And

to notice as the biggest players in the

global economy already have that when

the promises behind paper money begin to

wobble, the world quietly moves towards

the things that cannot be printed,

cannot be frozen, or cannot be switched

off. Maybe the machine beneath the money

that you rely on was invisible to you.

My hope is that it's not invisible

anymore. And in a world where the ground

underneath money is absolutely shifting,

seeing it clearly is the whole

advantage. But honest question, what am

I missing? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoy my content, my name is Jay

Martin and this is the J Martin Show and

I publish right here every single

Saturday and I love doing it. If you

enjoyed this, do me a favor. Click like,

hit subscribe, but most importantly,

share this video with a friend. Somebody

that you know needs to see it. I'll see

you next Saturday. Have a great week.