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Edward Frederick Lindey Wood (1881-1959), better known as Lord Halifax, was everything in British politicseven Viceroy of India, with the exception of Prime Minister. It could be, but declined in favor of Winston Churchill (1874-1965) before him Hitler challenged (1889-1945) At the beginning of World War II.

He was also ambassador to the United Kingdom in the United States and one day in Washington he whispered him John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946): “It is true that they have money, but we have the brains.” The end of the Bretton Woods Conferencewhich imposed – for the force of the facts – to the dollar as the world reference currency, although it still remained linked to the dollar until the Republican Richard Nixon (1913-1994) suppressed it to cover the huge deficits generated by the Vietnam War.

Keynes had defended his thesis, more British -europeas– in Bretton WooD But he had to give in to the American negotiator Harry Dexter White (1892-1948), which imposed the power of the money that the United States had. He explained everything in detail Richard N. Gardner (1927-2019), an expert in international relations, who was an American ambassador to Italy and Spain, in his book “The diplomacy of the dollar and sterling.”

Eighty years later, and for the first time, the primacy of the dollar, which will still resist, begins to be questioned. Martin Wolf, the very scrutinized economic analyst of the Financial Times, he asks: “Is the domain of the dollar disappear?” Then explain what Donald Trump He would have said: “If we lost the dollar as world currency, that would be losing a war.”

The problem is that for a country maintain the supremacy of your currency He has no choice but to meet economic requirements. One of them is that the debt contracted by that country, always and in any circumstance is paid and is something indisputable and accepted.

Alarms appear when, for example, among other things, the Secretary of the American Treasury, From the Trump administration, Scott Besent, declares that the United States “will never stop paying its debt.”

He tried to counteract the nervousness of many investors for the huge US federal debt And what he did was envive a fire. There were those who recalled the Latin Adagio, of medieval origin, “Excusatio Non Petita, Accusatio Manifesta Est”. What happens is that, although he does not know, Donald Trump and his erratic and confusing economic policy are caught in the so-called Triffin dilemma (1911-1993), a Belgian-American economist specialist in monetary policy.

In 1968 developed the theory that an economy – in this case that of the United States – cannot create international liquidity if it is not through indebtedness with other countries, which means generating and maintaining a deficit in the balance of payments when buying goods, services and also investments in other countries and with military spending to ensure the presence abroad and maintain the influence, in this worldwide case.

He dollar suffers more flukens than everbut it will remain there. There is a no less reason. A currency is still dominant until another arises that replaces it. That was what happened with the dollar, which replaced the pound sterling after World War II and hence the title of Gardner’s book. Now, there is still no coin that can take the place of the American currency.

The only candidate would be the eurobut he has a very long stretch to go, although he has in his favor – and it is not little – that the Trump measures They do more than anything or anyone for the European currency.

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB) He claims the “historical opportunity” presented to the single currency. Last week, in Berlin, he claimed to strengthen the euro.

“The change in the environment,” he said, “could open the door for the euro to play a more important international role.” However, “he said,” is not a privilege that will be granted without further ado. We have to win it ».

The road, however, would be long. At this time, No expert grants real options that the euro destroys the dollar. The most enthusiastic remember, on the other hand, that the euro is currently the second world currency, which represents about 20% of foreign exchange reserves, compared to 58% that still maintains the dollar.

They claim that the American currency maintained similar proportions with the pound when it began its career to unseat the British. Of course, here now, with Trump, the diplomacy is complicated and may make sense again that “they have money and we brains,” according to Lord Halifax.