sentences:  The petrodollar system originated in the early 1970s in the wake of the Bretton Woods collapse.President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, feared that the abandonment of the international gold standard under the Bretton Woods arrangement (combined with a growing US trade deficit, and massive debt associated with the ongoing Vietnam War) would cause a decline in the relative global demand of the U.S. dollar.In a series of meetings, the United States and the Saudi royal family made an agreement.