Except the Nixon dealings did happen, and is common knowledge at this point. In order to purchase oil on the international market (i.e., purchase oil from any market but your home market), you need to utilize the USD in order to do so. This props up the strength of the dollar, as demand for the dollar goes up drastically because of this limitation. This pretty much allowed any imports to be drastically cheaper than exports, because it cost other countries that didn't use the USD on other international markets (say for furniture) more money to purchase those goods produced in the United States than if the United States would from their own countries. Add onto this stuff such as the NAFTA, which eliminated tariffs and eased regulations toward workers, and you begin to see why American industry began to die in the 70s, when the Nixon deal was struck, and accelerated greatly in the 80s and 90s. Essentially, United States corporations have a better hand than the corporations of many other countries, and thus have a better lease toward exploiting the resources of other countries, as they can import in much more resources than other countries, or more accurately, ship those resources to their factories in other countries and import them into the United States. It's also because of this that the United States can import in oil from most other countries at far cheaper prices than most other countries, unless said countries try to create deals between one another, most of which are crushed pretty quickly.
(I'm hoping you get my implication)).