No...but in order to be a reserve currency, central banks must keep a supply of the currency to back up these transactions. As the reserve is not needed, due to international settlements in other currencies, the need to keep those reserves declines.
If the bank is not going to need them—and everyone knows that, the entire supply of dollars is, all of a sudden, too large. So they start selling them. It starts a cascade effect where everyone is selling dollars—and all of those dollars start going down in value.
The Fed would need in raise interest rates to “sop up” the extra dollars and get them out of the market.
So, the process will start slowly. First with trading between two fairly large economies. Then with things like “oil for gold” —which is already happening. It could hit a tipping point and almost overnight, things are really bad.
Its like the old saying, “How do you go bankrupt? A little at a time, and then all of a sudden.”
I am not indicating this WILL happen. But it is things like this that show that the rock solid dollars is not as rock solid as it used to be.
And no, the USD is not backed by gold. If we were backed by gold the debt could never have gotten this high.
But you knew all this right? You understand how this works—since you are trying to educate me.
I'm also aware of the realities of the Russian economy and have no concerns over them or the Chinese driving the dollar from its perch.