>If the US wants to create sanctions to those that treat the petrodollar or US hegemony, like Russia(now) or China(tomorrow)... I think saying that Russia is a

>If the US wants to create sanctions to those that treat the petrodollar or US hegemony, like Russia(now) or China(tomorrow)... I think saying that Russia is an economic threat to US hegemony is a bit misplaced. In international trade, Russia has as much trade volume as Spain (which is around 1/5 of the trade volume of China/EU/US). In the one area it does dominate (Natural Gas), basically all of it goes to the EU anyways. So at best Russia could help create a petroeuro (because Russia certainly doesn't have the international trade necessary to cancel out energy price volatility,so using the rouble would be very dangerous) Besides, Russian use of the Panama canal is practically nil (they don't show up in the top 25 countries using it, in country of origin or destination). They have enough land routes to most of the big economies already.