US dollar

Before 1940 Saudi Arabia was a desert populated by tribes of Bedouins who struggled to survive in the harsh, dry country of sand storms and camels. An American company discovered oil in 1940 and over the next 30 years US engineers developed the vast oil fields and beginning in the 1970’s the Saudi Government began to assume ownership. By 1980 Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company) was transferred in total to the Saudi’s Part of the deal was that the Saudis knew that they did not have the military to protect their fields from a takeover by some foreign country, so they agreed to accept protection from the Americans. As a part of the deal the Saudis agreed to only sell oil in US dollars and thus was created the petrodollar which is still the rule today. This is one of the main reasons why the US dollar is still regarded as the world’s currency. This is just one more way that the US helped the world during the 20th century along with defeating fascism, Nazism and communism not to mention the many medical advances produced by US research and advances in space technology as we now await AI.