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Michael Wme's avatar

For many years, the US was the biggest buyer of oil. A larger percentage of Americans drove cars than other large countries, and much of American commerce travels by truck, not rail. So the OPEC nations desperately needed US business and did what the US told them to do.

But fracking means the US is now a net exporter (not by much, but still, a net exporter) and now many Chinese families have a car, and that's a lot of cars, and now many Chinese villages without a railway station have trucks moving their commerce in and out. So now the PRC is the biggest importer of oil, which means that, when the PRC ordered Saudi and Iran to be friends, they shook hands as ordered.

If one measures an economy by the US dollar equivalent of trade, the US is still the largest economy, but by PPP the PRC economy is largest.

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Jan Bushi Strelok's avatar

Brics is hard bricked. Arabia belongs in a reformed and refreshed, strong Non-Aligned Movement, not in a tralala monetary organisation which includes Nazi China. Especially them.

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