The UAE has told US Treasury officials that if dollar liquidity tightens enough due to the Hormuz war and halted oil export revenues, it will shift oil transactions to Chinese yuan. That warning — reported this morning — is a contingency, not a confirmed switch. But it is the most direct petroyuan threat from a Gulf state since Saudi Arabia floated yuan LNG pricing in 2023.
The UAE already has the infrastructure to make this switch. It is a participant in the mBridge cross-border CBDC payment experiment alongside China, Hong Kong,…
