all China can do is kill the value of the dollar against CNY, which it probably doesn't want to do, because both for domestic growth and geopolitical reasons, it wants to sell to the US, not price out US consumers. changing the status of USD would take coordinated multilateral change.

(It could I guess play games and sell USD for EUR or something, rather than CNY. But then Europe would respond to the unwanted appreciation of the Euro. Ultimately China's trade imbalance is a hot potato so far only the US has been willing to swallow.)

Yes. I know the history. And I know a lot of people conspiratorially overstate the cohesion of the BRICs. Nevertheless, despite the group's very random start, they do represent a hodgepodge of countries unhappy with the US-led order or fearful and looking to hedge the possibility of its end. 1/

The countries have little income, are not a meaningful geopolitical bloc. But they do have a shared interest in pursuing things like alternative payment rails and other institutions that might support international trade while circumventing US controls. /fin

I think reserve-currency status leads to complicated things, some good and some bad for the US. I'm not sure what everything else you're referring to. 1/

But I think reserve-currency status, for better and for worse, is sustained in part by the military protection we offer allies, and a tacit understanding that standardizing on USD is part of the arrangement. 2/

If we are going to destabilize the sense of stable alliance with important, pretty rich allies, we should do it with eyes open about a potential effect on willingness to hold the currency. 3/

Encouraging a shift from the US dollar might be a net positive for the US! 4/

"Exorbitant privilege" in terms of noninflationary expenditure is offset by "exorbitant burden" in terms of drain on domestic demand and impetus toward deindustrialization. Different people can weigh the costs and benefits differently. 5/

(Trump seems to value USD reserve currency though, since he threatens retaliation against countries that seem to pursue an alternative to the dollar.) 6/

In any case, if we start threatening our allies, destabilizing our reserve-currency status is a potential consequence we should weigh. For good or ill. /fin

(when i first started traveling to Romania there was an IT firm IDM whose logo was IBM's exactly unless you looked very carefully.)

(more seriously, yes, US IP interests would not favor compulsive licensing of anything by anyone. the US public, on the other hand...)

I mostly agree. But the now broader group does also have some shared interests. Yes, they begin from a random investor note about which emerging markets happened to be booming. But that's of only historical interest now. 1/

The emerging group represents a coalition of governments with some degree of dissatisfaction towards what they perceive as an unjust status quo world order, or with some desire to hedge the potential end of that order. 2/

Several members have an interest in evading USG financial chokepoints, and are working to develop alternative rails. If the US mistreats even its allies, an interest in those rails could become more widely shared. /fin