LettersUAE’s Opec exit reflects a complex world
Readers discuss the UAE’s decision to leave the oil cartel, and a Vietnamese leader’s choice to travel twice on China’s high-speed trains
Yet to read the decision as purely commercial would be incomplete. It takes place against a broader reconfiguration of global power that deserves attention.
For decades, the United States benefited from a system in which oil trade, financial flows and security guarantees were tightly linked and denominated in dollars. That arrangement is now under genuine pressure.
Since the freezing of Russian sovereign assets in 2022, many countries have questioned whether dollar-denominated holdings are politically neutral. Central banks have diversified reserves, increased gold holdings and explored alternative settlement mechanisms.
The UAE’s accession to the Brics grouping as a full member in 2024 reflects this wider hedging instinct – one shared across much of the Global South – even as Abu Dhabi has been careful to frame its membership in terms of balanced diplomacy rather than as a break with the West.