US dollar weakens as de-dollarisation becomes ‘real, and frankly scary, prospect’
The dollar has fallen 0.7 per cent today, marking its fifth straight day of decline, as markets continue to reassess the currency’s position in the global economy.
The DXY index, which tracks the dollar’s value against a basket of currencies, dropped to its lowest in three years in trading today.
The dollar index has now fallen more than four per cent since Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ at the start of April, as investors sell their US assets over fears around the country’s growth prospects.
In comments on Friday evening, President Trump insisted that the dollar would always remain “the currency of choice” and said “if a nation said we’re not going to be on the dollar, I would tell you that within about one phone call they would be back on the dollar”.
However, Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone said there was a risk “of moving away from a decades-long period of dollar and US hegemony”.
Brown did note that there was currently no alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency, and the tariffs that shook dollar confidence last week have been temporarily paused.
“However, the incoherence with which economic policy is being made, coupled with the credibility erosion caused by president Trump’s constant u-turns and ‘governing by tweet’ modus operandi, is clearly creating more than a few jitters,” the strategist said.
“Fundamentally, even though the ridiculous ‘reciprocal’ tariffs have been paused (for now), the prospect of those levies being imposed again will continue to linger.”
“De-dollarisation is now a real, and frankly scary, prospect,” said Brown.
US dollar hit by China tariffs
In a research note on Friday, ING analysts explained that one reason for the sharp decline in the dollar was Trump’s increasingly large tariffs on China.
As the US will likely be unable to make immediate substitutes for many of the goods it buys from China, this will cause even greater inflationary risks for the dollar.
The biggest beneficiary of this decline in the dollar has been the euro, rising five per cent since ‘Liberation Day’, as it is widely seen as one of the few available to absorb any exodus from US assets.
“It does seem that European Central Bank officials are keen to market the euro as the strong alternative to the dollar at the moment,” noted ING analysts.
Meanwhile, the pound has struggled to match the performance of some other currencies due to the UK’s high exposure to the strength of the global economy, but is still up two per cent against the dollar over the last two weeks.