King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World’s Dominant Currency

Blustein, a prominent financial journalist, considers the past, present, and future of the dollar as an international currency. Invoking Spider-Man (“With great power comes great responsibility”) and Mark Twain (“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”), Blustein argues that the greenback will remain the principal currency used in cross-border payments unless Washington makes catastrophic missteps. The dollar’s dominance rests on whether the United States continues to try to fulfill its singular responsibility to maintain global financial stability (hence Spider-Man’s proverb) and on the enduring advantages of the dollar’s incumbency as the world’s preeminent currency (hence the phrase attributed to Twain). It also depends on whether the country keeps its public debt under control and exercises discretion and restraint when applying financial sanctions. The book went to press after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election but before his inauguration. Given subsequent volatility in U.S. bond markets and the administration’s mixed messages about the dollar’s international role, a second edition would likely be less sanguine about the currency’s global prospects.