On Friday, shipping giants A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S (Maersk) and Hapag-Lloyd stopped all container ship travel in the Red Sea. The following day, Italian-Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company and French-based CMA CGM followed suit.

This means that four major shipping companies are now no longer doing business in the Red Sea, which plays a critical role in the global economy. The Red Sea’s connection to the Mediterranean Sea and the way it allows for easy vessel travel between Asia and Europe makes it one of the most heavily traveled waterways in the world.

Problems began when Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen started firing missiles and drone attacks at commercial vessels in the Red Sea in retaliation against Israel for its Gaza operation, as well as against the United States and other Western countries that back Israel.

There have now been four separate missile and drone attacks near the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, which separates Yemen and Djibouti at the south end of the Red Sea next to the Gulf of Aden.

(Related: The world’s second-largest electronic components manufacturer has announced a 20-week delay for “engineered-to-order” [ETO] components in yet another global supply chain disruption.)

10 percent of global trade disrupted by Red Sea conflict

Roughly 10 percent of the world’s international trade occurs in the Red Sea. Each year, some $2.4 trillion worth of trade passes through its waters, which makes these vessel cancellations a major news item in terms of the global economy.

“We are deeply concerned about the highly escalated security situation in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” reads a statement from Maersk. “The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the area are alarming and pose a significant threat to the safety and security of seafarers.”

Nils Haupt, a spokesman for Hapag-Lloyd, issued a statement of his own indicating that container ships are currently drifting outside the straight as they await further instructions. Some shipping companies have already completely rerouted their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the conflict area.

Also over the weekend, U.S. Central Command tweeted on X (formerly Twitter) that the Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS CARNEY shot down 14 Houthi drones in the Red Sea.

The Cape of Good Hope, by the way, is located at the very southern tip of South Africa. To reroute there instead of going through the Red Sea adds thousands of miles of extra travel for commercial vessels, which now have a lot further to go before reaching their destination.

Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar warned earlier this year that the collapsing old world order would create conflict in international waters that will require intervention by militaries around the world. De-globalization seems to be the name of the game as nations of the world move back towards nationalism.

“I suspect the Iranians have armed the Houthis with some serious anti-ship missiles and there is a fear of embarrassment if a Navy ship is sunk,” one commenter wrote on a story about the Red Sea crisis. “The gayest Navy in the world.”

“The U.S. is itching to go at Iran,” suggested another. “No doubt the false flag will come soon enough, just as soon as Israel has mopped up the Gaza Strip. But ‘wars’ are not about winning; they are about killing our young and making the rich richer.”

Another noted that a lot of the commercial vessel traffic that goes through the Red Sea is bound for Europe, which is likely to see more supply chain problems emerge out of this.

Sources for this article include:

• ZeroHedge.com
• NaturalNews.com

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has been busy over the past year striking deals to expand the ways in which the yuan is used. Countries like Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and even France have recently signed new agreements linked to the use of the renminbi. (Related: DE-DOLLARIZATION: China now uses the yuan for cross-border transactions more than it uses the US dollar.)

“The yuan is becoming increasingly relevant as currency for international trade,” said Luis Galli, chief executive officer of the Newsan, one of Argentina’s largest home appliance retailers.

Last month, in a bid to relieve pressure on the Argentinian economy due to its lack of U.S. dollars, Newsan started settling deals in the Chinese yuan. This has been a boon for the company that mainly imports its products from China and, until recently, was paying for its appliances in the dollar.

This was followed by a deal the Argentine government struck with China in April to purchase around $1 billion worth of imports from China in yuan, and another $790 million worth of monthly imports thereafter. The Argentine government also activated a currency swap agreement, allowing Argentinian corporations to borrow yuan from China.

Other nations are making similar moves greatly benefiting China and increasing the prevalence of the yuan in the global stage.

Brazil last month announced that companies can now settle their trade in the yuan, and a major Brazilian bank – Banco BOCOM BBM – is now transitioning to using the yuan as its default currency for international transactions. Last month, Bangladesh announced it would conclude a $318 million deal with a recently sanctioned Russian nuclear power developer using the yuan.

Iran, which has been heavily sanctioned by the U.S. for decades, has been using the yuan to settle trade as far back as 2012 when it allowed China to purchase crude oil using the yuan. In February of this year, Tehran and Beijing reopened negotiations to expand the use of the yuan as well as the Iranian rial in bilateral trade.

And in Russia, the yuan has become exponentially prevalent in Russian financial life. Sixteen percent of exports and 23 percent of imports are paid for using the yuan, 11 percent of foreign exchange deposits are now made in the yuan and a whopping 40 percent of foreign exchange trading volumes involve the yuan.

Even President Emmanuel Macron of France, a key ally of the U.S., warned against the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” suggesting in an interview that Europe should cut its dependence on the greenback. This comes at around the same time he signed a whole host of new commercial agreements with China, some of which will involve the use of the yuan.

American dollar’s place in the world stage slowly diminishing

The American dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since the Second World War and has for nearly a century played a massively outsized role in the world’s trade. Today, it remains the clear premier global currency and the U.S. is still considered the world’s foremost financial powerhouse.

But China’s latest moves are helping the communist nation carve out a bigger place for itself and the yuan within the international financial system. The de-dollarization campaign has quickened its pace since the Western world, led by the U.S., froze Russia’s entire stockpile of American dollars over its special military invasion in Ukraine.

This has led countries worldwide to diversify their own currency holdings for fear of the U.S. unilaterally making similar moves against their own economies. They consider what happened to Russia as a warning over the oversized power that Washington currently wields and a sign that the world needs to create an alternative financial system.

“[China] is working to demonstrate that there’s a world outside of the U.S. and the Western world,” warned Adrian Zuercher, an executive at UBS Global Wealth Management’s Hong Kong office. “You’re sending a very strong signal to the U.S. by basically saying we don’t need you and we don’t need your U.S. dollar.”

“China’s willingness to maintain growth while paving new paths lends itself for other nations to have greater confidence to use the yuan,” said Victor Gao, a spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party. “If the U.S. wants to rock the boat, then China will need to make necessary amendments to meet the challenges.”

Learn more about the declining status of the American dollar on the world stage at DollarDemise.com.

Watch this episode of the “Health Ranger Report” as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, warns about the accelerating speed at which the world is divesting from the dollar.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• Dollar DEMISE: Yuan overtakes dollar in China’s cross-border payments.
• Top Arab leaders including Saudis, Iranians, meet in China to plot “end” of American global dominance.
• US dollar rapidly losing world reserve currency status; China, Russia (BRICS) to replace it.
• BRICS nations rapidly working to create common currency to counter US dollar’s global hegemony.
• China settles first LNG trade using YUAN – a major blow to the petrodollar.

Sources include:

• MSN.com
• BusinessInsider.com
• Bloomberg.com
• Brighteon.com
• NATURAL NEWS