The Arabs temporarily saved the dollar, which is on a path of decline, by investing massively in American assets in 2025.
It should be recalled that the same thing happened at the beginning of the 1970s decade, when US President Richard Nixon decoupled the dollar from the price of gold and forced the countries of the Persian Gulf to sell oil in the American currency and at the same time to buy American assets and debt.
Radhika Desai, in her study De-Dollarisation: The Path to the Future, points out that while the pro American and pro Western elites in the countries of the Global South are rightly described as a critical factor supporting US power, which can be used in regime change operations, their real connection to the United States is not ideological but financial.
The dollar based financial system is the largest tax haven globally and constitutes a preferred “destination” for the money of the privileged elites of the Global Majority, who wish to hide it and or use it for speculative activity or lending on onerous terms abroad instead of productive investments within their own countries.
Their integration into this system constitutes the greatest obstacle to the creation of monetary alternatives to the dollar system, she notes.
See more: De-Dollarisation: The Path to the Future — Valdai Club
Corroborating the above are data showing that sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds channeled the impressive amount of 132 billion dollars – approximately half of their total investments last year – into the United States in 2025, while major emerging markets attracted almost one third less capital compared to 2024, according to an annual report published on Thursday 1 January.
These gigantic investors, together with central banks, managed record assets of 60 trillion dollars last year, as reported by the Global SWF report, with sovereign wealth funds accounting for two thirds of the capital invested in the United States during the year.
“There was a paradigm shift regarding recipient countries,” wrote Diego Lopez, chief executive officer of Global SWF, in his analysis of the data, adding that the world’s largest economy benefited from investments focused on digital infrastructure, data centers, and artificial intelligence companies.
The surge of sovereign wealth fund assets
The assets of sovereign wealth funds alone also reached a new historic high, 15 trillion dollars, according to the report, which uses a combination of public data and official disclosures to track the assets and spending of sovereign investors worldwide, including investment and pension funds as well as central banks.
Overall, investments by sovereign wealth funds increased by 35%, reaching 179.3 billion dollars.
Decline of emerging markets
The redirection of investments toward the United States occurred, however, at the expense of emerging markets, despite their particularly strong performance in 2025.
“The big losers were emerging markets, especially China, India, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, which received disappointingly low levels of investment in 2025: a 28% decline compared to 2024 and just 15% of the total,” Lopez wrote.
By contrast, private credit investors have begun turning toward emerging markets, seeking higher returns and more favorable project structures, according to the report.
All 11 new sovereign wealth funds created during the year originated from emerging markets, however, with crude oil prices under pressure, 2026 may bring changes for today’s major “players”.
Saudi Arabia already has plans to reorient its spending due to low oil prices and delays in flagship projects.
“The new chapter will depend on the source of revenues: oil based sovereign wealth funds will find 2026 to be another difficult year, as revenues remain stagnant, while natural gas and metals such as copper will fuel new flows,” Diego Lopez wrote.
The United States retains its attractiveness – The games with Big Tech
The data on investment flows, as Diego Lopez notes, do not include the estimated 2.2 trillion dollars in shares of the so called Magnificent 7 – Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla – already held by sovereign wealth and pension funds.
The shift toward the United States underscores how American political power is being used, even as investors seek diversification due to rising geopolitical risk, as President Donald Trump reshapes the global economy.
The impressive amount of 132 billion dollars, that is 48% of total capital from sovereign investors from pension and sovereign wealth funds, was directed to the United States.
Investments in emerging markets fell to their lowest level in at least the past five years.
Donald Trump’s charm offensive in the Persian Gulf countries succeeded
This development also comes after striking commitments by Persian Gulf countries to invest hundreds of billions in the United States, often through their powerful sovereign wealth funds.
Saudi Arabia was Trump’s first foreign destination during his second term, while in November he hosted the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House.
Trump stated that Saudi Arabia agreed to invest 600 billion dollars in the United States, while Bin Salman pledged to increase the total amount to 1 trillion dollars.
Abu Dhabi has committed to investments of 1.4 trillion dollars in the United States, while Qatar plans investments of 500 billion dollars over the next decade.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), with investment commitments of 36.2 billion dollars, of which 80% will be directed to the acquisition of the videogame company Electronic Arts, as well as Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, with a historic record of 32.7 billion dollars, were the two largest investors.
Persian Gulf funds PIF, the Abu Dhabi based company L’imad Holding Company PJSC, and the Qatar Investment Authority are also key financiers of Paramount Skydance’s aggressive bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery.
The Canadian fund CPP, La Caisse, as well as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, were found together with PIF and Mubadala among the five largest investors.
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