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邁克爾·赫德森：美國帝國的全球霸權計劃
伊夫·史密斯 2025年6月28日
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06/michael-hudson-the-u-s-empires-plan-for-global-domination.html
我是伊夫。以下是本·諾頓與邁克爾·赫德森的另一場深入探討，他以美以與伊朗的戰爭作為切入點，探討了中東在美國霸權中的角色。
盡管這場談話中有很多精彩的內容，但我仍然不得不與赫德森就20世紀70年代石油危機期間美國與沙特阿拉伯達成的美元循環諒解的性質持有不同意見。該框架並非由財政部的比爾·西蒙製定，而是由亨利·基辛格和美國國務院在與沙特，尤其是其強大的石油部長沙特·費薩爾的談判中製定的。包括重要會議詳細記錄在內的關鍵文件已解密，並已發布在美國國務院網站上。這些文件明確指出，美國財政部在這些安排中扮演著次要角色（例如，他們很少參與基辛格和美國國務院與沙特·費薩爾及其他沙特高級官員的會談）。
基辛格及其團隊將他們的擔憂概括為如何“回收”沙特積累的美元。他們之所以努力說服沙特集中購買美國國債，是為了防止沙特吞噬美國的生產性資產：包括上市公司和私營企業的權益、商業地產、農田以及銀行（例如，阿爾·瓦利德王子在20世紀90年代初對至關重要的花旗銀行的救助，該銀行作為美國金融旗艦機構，在滿足美國跨國公司和小型出口商的支付需求方麵發揮著關鍵作用）。大規模控製生產性資產將賦予沙特酋長國巨大的政治權力。
我不認同沙特在20世紀70年代除了將美元再投資到美國以外的任何地方之外還有很多其他選擇的觀點（正如我之前所述，他們確實令人印象深刻地抬高了倫敦黃金地段的房地產價格，購入了大量高檔的梅菲爾區房產）。當時，美國是全球主導經濟體，即使在石油危機期間，也擁有強勁的增長前景。美國金融市場是全球最深厚、流動性最強、監管最完善的市場。美國的信息披露和投資者保護措施，例如禁止搶先交易和串通投標，都超過了當時任何其他市場。當時還沒有歐元，所以另一種選擇是投資規模小得多的國內市場，例如英國或德國，這些國家缺乏易於交易的投資品種。1984年，當我在倫敦花旗銀行為全球最大的外匯交易部門進行一項研究時，主要的貨幣“交叉盤”都是美元對美元。
美國在為投資者提供安全機製方麵發揮的突出作用一直持續到20世紀90年代初，這一點可以參見1994年《哈佛商業評論》上阿馬爾·拜德（Amar Bhide，他經常采用逆向思維，而且不幼稚；此外，他還經營著一家自營交易公司）的文章。
始於1983年的石油期貨交易所市場的發展進一步鞏固了美元在石油貿易中的地位（需要注意的是，像飛利浦兄弟公司（Philips Brothers）這樣的大宗商品交易商，雖然收購了所羅門兄弟公司（Salomon Brothers），但隨後遭到反向收購，而在此之前，他們一直在安排私人對衝）。
盡管20世紀70年代與沙特的談判確實促成了沙特同意持有大量美元美國國債，但美元作為儲備貨幣的持續作用取決於美國持續的貿易逆差，而不是石油貿易。石油美元論的一大反麵證據是，在1997年亞洲金融危機之後，中國和東南亞國家積極積累了大量外匯餘額。這些國家（中國除外）一直受到國際貨幣基金組織的“溫柔”照顧，不希望這種情況再次發生。因此，他們操縱本國貨幣，使其兌美元匯率相對低廉，從而保持持續的貿易順差，並積累大量美元資產以備不時之需。如果它們再次麵臨貨幣危機的風險，這將使它們能夠大規模幹預。這一行動顯然與石油貿易無關。日本在20世紀80年代製造業占據主導地位並對美國保持巨額貿易順差期間，也積累了大量美國國債。
Michael Hudson: The U.S. Empire’s Plan for Global Domination
As much as there is a great deal of terrific material in this talk, I have to continue to disagree with Hudson on the nature of the US dollar recycling understandings with Saudi Arabia during the oil shock of the 1970s. That framework was set not by Bill Simon of Treasury, but by Henry Kissinger and the State Department in negotiations with the Saudis, importantly its powerful oil minister Saud Al Faisal. Key documents, including detailed notes of important meetings, have been declassified and are on the State Department website. They make clear that the US Treasury was a secondary actor in these arrangements (for instance, they seldom participated in the talks by Kissinger and State with Saud Al Faisal and other top Saudi officials).
And Kissinger and his team framed their concern as how to “recycle” the dollar that the Saudis were piling up. The reason for the effort to persuade the Saudis to concentrate their buying in Treasuries was to forestall them from instead hoovering up US productive assets: interests in public and private companies, commercial real estate, farmland, banks (see Prince Al Waleed’s early 1990s rescue of the critically important Citibank, which plays a critical role as the US financial flagship serving payment needs for US multinationals and smaller exporters). Getting control of productive assets on a large scale would vest tremendous political power with the sheikdom.
I reject the thesis that the Saudis had much in the way of alternatives in the 1970s to reinvesting their dollars much of anywhere beyond the US (they did, as I have recounted, impressively bid up prime real estate in London, buying huge swathes of tony Mayfair). The US was the dominant global economy and even with the oil shock, had strong growth prospects. The US financial markets were the deepest, the most liquid, and the best regulated. US disclosures and investor protections like prohibitions against front-running and bid-rigging exceeded those of any other market at the time. There was no Euro back then, so the alternative would have been to invest in much smaller national markets like the UK or Germany, which has much less in the way of easily traded investments. As of 1984, when I was on a study for the world’s biggest foreign exchange trading desk, Citibank in London, the big currency “crosses” were against the dollar.
The US as the standout player in providing a safe regime for investors continued until easily the early 1990s, see Amar Bhide (who is regularly a contrary thinker and no naif; among other things, he ones ran a proprietary trading operation) in the Harvard Business Review in 1994 for confirmation.
The development of exchange-based markets for oil futures, starting in 1983 helped further cement the role of the dollar in the oil trade (keep in mind commodities traders like Philips Brothers, which acquired Salomon Brother but was then subject to a reverse takeover had been arranging private hedges before then).
Even though the 1970s negotiations with the Saudis did secure their agreement to keep their dollar holdings significantly in Treasuries, the continued role of the dollar as reserve currency depends on the US running sustained trade deficits, and not the oil trade. The big disproof of the petrodollar thesis is the very aggressive accumulation of large foreign exchange balances by China and Southeast Asian countries in the wake of the 1997 Asian crisis. These countries ex China had been subjected to the tender ministrations of the IMF and did not want that to happen again. So their manipulated their currencies to be comparatively cheap against the dollar so as to run sustained trade surpluses and accumulate a rainy day dollar assets hoard. That would enable them to intervene in a big way if they were ever again at risk of a currency crisis. This course of action clearly had nothing to do with the oil trade. Ditto Japan’s accumulation of large Treasury holdings during its 1980s period of manufacturing dominance and large trade surpluses with the US.
