The dollar's status as the world's funding currency is in question

In This Article:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and America First protectionist policies could be helping to accelerate the end of the dollar’s (DX=F) reign as the world’s reserve currency, analysts warn.

Having already instituted worldwide tariffs on steel and aluminum and threatening more taxes on foreign products from China, the European Union and a host of other U.S. allies and rivals, the president is pushing foreign governments to reconsider holding dollars and U.S. Treasury reserves.

“Although the dollar will continue to be used in most trades, there is a possibility that participants in the global economy start to look at alternatives like pricing in euro or pricing in [Chinese] renminbi,” said Karl Schamotta, director of FX strategy and structured products at Cambridge Global Payments in Toronto.

The dollar is a big risk to some countries

Using the dollar has long posed a risk to certain countries. China’s central bank in 2009 called for a global move away from the U.S. dollar after the market turbulence caused by the U.S.-induced global financial crisis. The People’s Bank of China renewed those calls in 2013 after the U.S. government shutdown when House Republicans refused to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, causing a downgrade to the nation’s credit rating.

Further, the dollar’s use as a funding currency means that nations that do business with one another must use dollars instead of their own currencies when purchasing commodities like oil. These nations have no control over the currency’s value, which has at times been volatile.

A man walks past an advertisement promoting China’s renminbi (RMB) or yuan, U.S. dollar and Euro exchange services at foreign exchange store in Hong Kong, China. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
A man walks past an advertisement promoting China’s renminbi (RMB) or yuan, U.S. dollar and Euro exchange services at foreign exchange store in Hong Kong, China. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

“There’s a disconnect there, increasingly so as the U.S. is less dominant in terms of the total economic pie in the world,” said John Hardy, head of FX strategy at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen.

However, Omer Esiner, chief market analyst and Commonwealth FX in Washington, says that we’ve seen this story play out before and so far little has changed.

“There’s something to be said about it over a very, very long-term horizon … anything could happen,” he said. “But it ultimately typically comes down to where do global investors see as the most liquid, deepest and reliable financial markets in the world, and that remains the United States.”

The rise of China

What may have changed is that China’s emergence on the world stage has provided an alternative. The country’s renminbi, or yuan, was added in 2016 to the International Monetary Fund’s reserve currency basket and China recently introduced a market to buy crude oil in renminbi rather than dollars.

China’s currency is held in reserves by less than 5% of reserve managers currently, but that could quickly change, says Douglas Borthwick, managing director at Chapdelaine Foreign Exchange in New York.