Close, but you're missing a step: create new money, give it to Americans so they can afford to buy exercise bikes, put a gun to the head of anyone who dares challenge the US dollar hegemony.
Didn't Germany already try this exact method and fail following their post-WWI sanctions? They had to pay back something like $132 billion gold marks London Schedule of Payments required Germany to pay ~ $132 billion gold marks and issued a bunch of currency leading to hyerinflation? And resentment, populism and nationalism rose and things went pear shaped from there.
