Donald Trump plots to devalue the dollar – will he succeed?

Trump's plan to devalue the dollar if he wins the US presidential election would be undermined by policies such as tariffs and tax cuts, and could trigger high inflation

 Donald J Trump is pictured on the side of coin on February 4,2021 in London, England
(Image credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

“We have a big currency problem,” Donald Trump tells Bloomberg Businessweek. The US presidential candidate flags the “strong dollar/weak yen, weak yuan” as a barrier to a revival in US manufacturing. Since the 1990s, US Treasury secretaries have generally taken the view that market forces should determine exchange rates, says Alan Rappeport in The New York Times. In 1995, Clinton administration official Robert Rubin even declared that “a strong dollar is in our national interest” as it helps to reduce government borrowing costs.

What a weaker dollar means for the US economy

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.