It absolutely does. If a French person or Japanese person or Brazilian or Russian or Chinese person sees a $ sign in relation to international news, I can assure you they will assume USD.

Of course, a Canadian or Australian, or New Zealander, or Rhodesian, or Zambian, whose local currency also uses the same symbol, will tend to assume their local currency instead. But they are a minority of the world's population.

Why not be explicit if there is room for misinterpretation or confusion, which this thread clearly demonstrates?

Especially on a thread specifically talking about currency conversion.

> All that international trade and banking you talk about refers to it as USD or US$, not $.

That is not true. For example on foreign exchange markets "Dollars" means USD. If you want AUD it's "ozzie", and if you want CAD it's "Loonie"[1], and NZD is "kiwi".

[1] I don't make the rules - FX markets are weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie