Trump’s attempt to weaken the US dollar spells ‘real trouble’: analysis

For many years, President Donald Trump has been laser-focused on reducing the worth of the U.S. greenback. And as president, he is doubled down on that aim. However one columnist is warning that weakening the greenback could show hazardous in additional methods than one.

In a Wednesday essay, The Atlantic’s Will Gottsegen defined that Trump’s campaign in opposition to the greenback has gone on since lengthy earlier than he was elected to the White Home. Trump’s anti-dollar marketing campaign started in earnest in 1987, when he took out full-page adverts within the New York Occasions, Washington Publish and Boston Globe complaining that the greenback was too sturdy in comparison with the “brilliantly managed” Japanese yen.

In keeping with Trump’s argument, the comparatively low worth of the Chinese language yuan and the Japanese yen makes it attainable for these nations to fabricate items on a budget in worldwide markets. Gottsegen famous that Trump has considerably succeeded, with the greenback just lately shedding 1.3 % of its worth in international alternate markets in comparison with different currencies across the globe.

Knowledge from Buying and selling Economics reveals that as of February 2026, the greenback index is at 97.741, which is the bottom mark of Trump’s second presidency. The greenback hasn’t been valued that low since March of 2022, when then-President Joe Biden was nonetheless contending with a worldwide provide chain that had been decimated within the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s escalating conflict in Ukraine and the ensuing decades-high inflation that these occasions helped create.

As a way to clarify how Trump’s actions have been contributing to a weaker foreign money, former Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) chief economist Kenneth Rogoff instructed Gottsegen that Trump was successfully “doing a rain dance” in wishing for the devaluation of the U.S. greenback. Rogoff stated there have been quite a few elements at play usually past a president’s management — like rates of interest set by the Federal Reserve – that affect the greenback’s worth way over any govt motion.

Gottsegen defined that the greenback has lengthy been the world’s reserve foreign money relationship again to the post-World Conflict II financial growth. And regardless of Trump’s actions, the greenback is just not in jeopardy of shedding its standing anytime quickly, which means the U.S. can nonetheless borrow cash for a comparatively low price, successfully impose financial sanctions on adversaries and proceed operating deficits. Nonetheless, because the greenback weakens, so does the USA’ affect overseas. Gottsegen cautioned that ought to the greenback proceed its slide, it might end in a dramatic shift of the worldwide order — and never in the USA’ favor.

“The true bother, in different phrases, is just not that the greenback’s worth is getting weaker,” he wrote. “It’s the likelihood that America’s allies and buying and selling companions could someday stop to respect it.”