The Moment Trump Leaves the Iran War, the Petrodollar Dies Forever Professor Jiang explains how the US economy is like a giant Ponzi scheme dependent on Gulf nations investing in American tech. If Iran forces the Gulf to abandon the petrodollar for food security, the US economy will face total collapse and revolution in the streets. For 50 years the petrodollar system forced the world to buy oil in U.S. dollars, then recycle those dollars into U.S. Treasuries and assets. That artificial demand is what kept the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. These same Gulf States are massively leveraged. They’ve borrowed heavily from Western banks to fund megaprojects, sovereign wealth plays, and lifestyle. When the oil money stops, they default. Those defaults cascade straight into the global banking system and the AI infrastructure bet. Jeff Currie, former Goldman Sachs head of commodities and lifelong insider of the dollar system, just laid out the one line America cannot cross. Handing control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran is not a tactical retreat. It is the formal end of the United States as global hegemon and the death of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that Iran had its “throat on the Strait of Hormuz” for 45+ years and told the Trump administration to “finish this thing and finish it right.” Bank of America’s desk reported that U.S. now only has 43-day emergency buffer of crude oil left in 45-year low.