PDB Special Report | June 29th, 2025: PDB Special Report: The Rio Reset & The End of Dollar Dominance?
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Welcome to a special edition of the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Today, we're going to talk about something that's flying under the radar, but it shouldn't be. It should be on your radar. On July 6th and 7th, the BRICS coalition is gathering in Rio de Janeiro. Why wouldn't you? It sounds posh. And it may mark the most serious challenge that the U.S. dollar has faced in

in 80 years. If you're not familiar with BRICS, this is an international coalition made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, along with new members like Iran and the UAE, which now represents half the world's population and industrial output.

The goal of July's meeting is to finalize a dollarless financial system, right? They're basically looking to push the U.S. dollar off the stage. That could upend the global order and diminish America's economic dominance. This so-called real reset, that's a clever name, has massive implications for U.S. influence, inflation, and the value of your savings.

Joining me now for more on this is Philip Patrick. He's a precious metals specialist and full disclosure, he's a spokesman for one of our excellent sponsors, Birch Gold Group. Philip, thanks very much for taking the time to join us. Thank you for having me. Let's start with the obvious question, maybe at 30,000 feet. What makes this upcoming BRICS meeting in Rio different from past meetings? Why now? Why is it important?

Look, I think this is the culmination of the work that they've been doing for really the last decade. Obviously, it's been escalating significantly over the last half decade and last few years. But, you know, the BRICS now have made their intentions clear. D-dollarization is on the horizon. They are teaming up.

to move away from the dollar for international trade. Now, I don't think it's going to happen July 10th, but this meeting, like I said, is a culmination of all of their work over the last 10 years and it's, I think, a very telling sign. From your perspective, if you had, I know this is speculation and it's tough to do, it's a soft science, based on what you're seeing out there,

Is there a timeline that you're concerned about? Is there sort of a short-term issue? Are we going to be having to fight on this for a fairly long time? Where are we at? Look, I think it's, you know, we're not going to lose global reserve currency status tomorrow, but de-dollarization is happening already. So, US dollars held by central banks today are at 30-year lows. So, we're starting to see that process. Now, what's happening with

the BRICS, but with the BRICS is they're setting up a shadow financial system. So it's not a case of if they're going to start moving away from the dollar, the question is in what quantities, at what volume. But when I say they've set up a shadow financial system, I mean physically.

They have a payment system now to rival our Swift payment system. They have the new development bank, which is designed to reduce reliance on the INF. Most importantly of all, they have thousands of miles of undersea cables so they can move away from the Western controlled system. So like I said, there's been a huge amount of expense. This is all there and ready. The meeting, I think, is just solidifying.

Okay. Now, for those that, and I think there are a lot of folks out there who haven't or don't pay attention to the BRICS nations, talk to me a little bit about that. I mean, in terms of how it got started, but it's also been growing, right? They've been adding members for some time.

Yeah, absolutely. So the BRICS, of course, is Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. We have new members now, Nigeria, Indonesia, two behemoths, large populations, large natural resources, and I think around 25 other nations now clambering to sign up.

to no longer trade, at least bilaterally between them in the dollar. And I think this will be a significant issue. We have to remember since 1971, since we were removed from the gold standard, the dollar's value has been based on supply and demand. Obviously, we've been massively increasing supply with huge money printing. As demand starts to wane, it becomes problematic. And we're seeing that now already with borrowing rates on government treasuries

shooting up on the back of waning demand. Okay. Now, am I wrong in thinking that at this stage of the game, if you take in all the members of the BRICS nations, that represents some half of the world's population and half of the industrial output?

It's exactly correct. Actually, 50% of the world's population, and as of last year, slightly more than 50% of the world's GDP. So they are now a force, not a joke. And that, for me, is the big concern. They are gathering steam. And they're not a natural alliance, right? Russia and China, certainly not. India and China, certainly not. But it's an alliance through shared interests, if you will.

Talk about that, if you could, the motivation, right? I mean, you could look at this and say, well, it's an anti-American movement or however you want to say it. But what is the underlying, from your perspective, underlying motivation for why this push to move the US dollar off as the global currency? I mean, it's a great question. I think

broadly speaking, there's two drivers, right? So one is devaluation of currency, right? You have to remember as global reserve currency, it's a very privileged position to be in. Nations around the world stockpile our currency, therefore creating demand to use for international trade. Well, we've been printing money hand over fist. In fact, in the last 10 years, we printed more money than ever before in history combined. And what that does is devalue the dollar. The dollar has lost

21% of its purchasing power just since the pandemic five years ago. For central banks around the world, that's a big problem. So what they've been doing is dumping dollars and buying gold. 22, 23, and 24, central banks set historical records for gold buying.

The second side of it, and I think this was perhaps the main catalyst for the BRICS, was weaponization of our currency. We have increased global sanctions significantly since the turn of the century. US-led sanctions have increased by 900% following 2001. The straw that broke the camel's back, I believe, were the sanctions against Russia. We

took their dollar holdings, essentially froze their sovereign wealth fund. And in doing so, we told any nation around the world, if you do something that we morally object to in the West, your assets can become liabilities. Well, obviously, countries like China, who have aspirations for Taiwan, realize they have to end dollar hedger money. So I think it's a combination of both of those things.

There's a lot there in that answer. That was a lot to unpack in what you just said. But in terms of practical application here, if BRX rolls out its own currency, what does that look like in practice? I guess what I'm saying is, are we talking in part digital? Are we talking gold back? How do they pull this off?

Look, so both of those things actually. Certainly gold-backed, I think, will be key. The problem that the BRICS have at the moment is they don't have a currency that can usurp the dollar. Listen, China want to dump their dollars, but they don't want to hold their wealth in rubles or rupees. These things are far too volatile. So the dollar is still the cleanest dirty shirt in the hamper, if you will.

So, what the BRICS are doing short-term is using gold as a means to de-dollarize. And you can see it, right? So, US dollar holdings by central banks are at 30-year lows, gold buying at all-time highs. Gold last year overtook the euro as the number two global reserve asset. And it was a function of central banks selling their dollars and buying gold.

A BRICS currency, and one's being touted called the UNIT, they're saying that likely it will be gold-backed because it needs some measure of stability and legitimacy, and gold provides that. They're also talking about payment systems that would allow multiple different currencies. So they're creating a version of our Western system, but they're updating it, tweaking it, and making it more efficient.

Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, as we've been discussing, the Rio reset set for the July 6th that's coming up could mark the biggest challenge to the US dollar's dominance in over 80 years. BRICS nations are looking to bypass the dollar entirely and they're already dumping US assets in favor of gold. So, you ask yourself, how do you protect your hard-earned dollar savings? Well, may I suggest with Birch Gold Group. Look,

Gold has historically been a safe haven in uncertain times, and these current times do, frankly, appear uncertain. Just text PDB to 989-898 to get your free information kit on tax-sheltered gold IRAs. July 6th is coming. Don't wait. Get your free information kit simply by texting PDB to 989-898. And now, back to my interview with Philip Patrick.

In a sense, right? I mean, I mentioned, I don't think a lot of people are following day to day what's going on with the BRICS nations, but there's this direct potential impact here. So, what we're talking about in terms of the devaluing of the dollar, the move to push it off as a global reserve currency, I know this is a broad question, but what could that mean for people's savings, for the retirement, for, and as you mentioned, their purchasing power?

Ultimately, the dollar's value is based on supply and demand, right? As I mentioned earlier.

And sorry about that, I wasn't prepared for that. That dollar's value was based on supply and demand, right? And ultimately, when demand starts to wane, like we're talking about at the moment, what that leads to is a devaluation of currency. Central banks around the world see that as lost purchasing power. We feel that as inflation. So what it means to people like you and I, our dollar doesn't go far enough.

the prices of goods and services start to increase. And ultimately, we start to see the wealth of the middle class get evaporated. And we've been seeing that trend over and over again.

In a sense, I mean, I guess this is going to be speaking a little bit to what we've talked about already, but it does seem whenever things get shaky out there in the global economy, gold enters the picture. It always seems to pop in. Anytime there's uncertainty, there's instability.

So, I know we talked about it a little bit, you've already touched on some, but in a broad sense, why is that? Why does gold keep surfacing? Why does it carry so much weight? No pun intended. It's a great question. So, first of all, gold is a safe haven asset, right? So, when things are tough, people flood to safe haven assets. Now, that used to be the dollar. It used to be government debt, but in a time where the dollar's losing value, when the

government debt is in question, people are looking at gold. The second side of it, and this has really been the catalyst over the last few years, is devaluation of the dollar. Listen, people buy gold when they're worried about the dollar losing value for a very simple reason. Gold and the dollar have a directly inverse relationship. And that means when the dollar goes down, gold goes up. To explain it, and to explain why, because I think it's important,

Gold is a store of van, right? It has been for centuries. And it doesn't really lose purchasing power. To give an extreme example, per religious scriptures, one ounce of gold would buy 400 loaves of bread in biblical times. Today, it buys 400 loaves of bread.

So it's not the buying power of gold that's changing, it's the value of the dollar. So essentially, as the dollar becomes weaker, we need more weaker dollars to buy gold, hence that inverse relationship. And just to add to that quickly, look at gold last century. Compared to something like the markets, it didn't really grow up.

This century, it has outperformed almost every financial market, and it's because of the increase in the money supply. That really started at the turn of the century and escalated significantly over the last five years. So it's the climate we're in.

Philip, Patrick, I got to tell you, it's really insightful. We very much appreciate your comments, your experience on all of this and would encourage people to pay attention to what's going to be happening in Rio with the next BRICS summit. But listen, Philip, thank you very much for taking the time to join us. Really appreciate it.

Well, that, my friends, is all the time that we have for this special edition of the President's Daily Brief. To listen to the show ad-free, which you know you can do, and you can do it very simply, just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.