this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Dollar drops against basket of currencies after Donald Trump brushed off concerns over slide

The US dollar has fallen to its lowest level in four years after Donald Trump brushed off concerns over the currency’s fall, sending investors fleeing to traditional havens including gold and the Swiss franc.

The dollar dropped by 1.3% against a basket of currencies after the president’s comments on Tuesday, marking its fourth day of declines, then slipped by a further 0.2% on Wednesday morning.

“No, I think it’s great,” Trump said of the weaker dollar, during a visit to Iowa to promote his record on the economy. Asked whether he was concerned about the currency’s slide, he told reporters: “I think the value of the dollar – look at the business we’re doing. The dollar’s doing great.”

The greenback has tumbled by 10% over the past year, while Tuesday’s fall was the largest one-day drop since last April, when Trump announced his sweeping tariff plans, marking a global market sell-off.

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[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 47 points 1 day ago

Lowest level so far

[–] OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 16 points 22 hours ago

We ain't seen nothing yet. Give it more time.

[–] Wilco@lemmy.zip 48 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Well that's odd. The tariffs do not seem to be working.

[–] howl2@lemmy.zip 17 points 22 hours ago

Yes they are. They are working exactly as the people in charge want them to. They want a weak dollar and low interest rates because it allows them to get smaller debt payments, and a weak dollar/inflation makes the numbers go up. It's a risky game though, because demonetization could mean a worthless dollar and a destroyed economy. But again, I wouldn't be surprised if they want that to because then they can strip it all for parts and sell it off to our enemies. As long as they get richer they don't give a shit. They will just convert any currency to whatever new safe haven and continue on.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 3 points 22 hours ago

🤣🤣🤣you mean the sundowning musings of a failed reality tv star and convicted sexual predator arent helping make America great again?!

Surprised pikachu face

[–] YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz 98 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is by design and part of Project 2026.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 30 points 1 day ago

Yeah he literally mentioned wanting to devalue the currency multiple times during his campaign.

[–] galaxy_nova@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (5 children)
[–] Afaithfulnihilist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 81 points 1 day ago (4 children)

It encourages foreign divestment which is good if you are in the crowd that thinks that trade is bad.

It also leads directly to rapid inflation as those dollars once used for trade are now sitting idle in the money pool. Rapid inflation is good if you own monopolies on essential goods like housing, fuel, groceries, and medical care as it provides cover for you to raise prices and decrease quality.

Also, with rapid inflation it becomes easier to hide graft and extortion in the government and maybe go after people like Powell for cost overruns on projects that could never have predicted that you would tank the economy.

[–] FatherPeanut@pawb.social 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I have pondered this a little, as to why this seems to be the route the administration is taking. The best explanation I've had is that Trump is taking a card from China's playbook.

Several years back, China weakened their currency with the goal of creating an environment that's more embracing to external companies wanting to setup manufacturing plants in their borders. With how this administration is speaking about boosting manufacturing, I can see these two narratives being in conjunction with one another. The problem I see here, though, is that those jobs were spurred on by lower wages as a result of that weaker currency, which I don't quite see as a goal the US should be striving towards.

Yes, given enough time, it'll pay itself back off, but this still seems like a subpar avenue, especially as one of those American workers that'll feel the impact. Whether that's truly the result or goal is anyone's guess, best I can do is speculate.

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's a goal if you're so fucking disgustingly rich you can buy a private island and haven't seen the poors since your office was close enough to them you could faintly make out a small dot.

Because you'll have enough wealth to survive the shit storm, and then there's nothing those dirty plebians can do to stop you from basically deciding how things run from now on in your little corner.

I'm making an assumption here that you aren't disgustingly rich and therefore the thought of "fuck 8 billion other people if I get mine" didn't come naturally to you.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I mean now is the time to unionize and group up. If people demand wage increases this whole strategy is undermined.

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[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Let us glance for a moment at the Middle Ages, when great fortunes began to spring up.

A feudal baron seizes on a fertile valley. But as long as the fertile valley is empty of folk our baron is not rich. His land brings him in nothing; he might as well possess a property in the moon.

What does our baron do to enrich himself? He looks out for peasants — for poor peasants!

If every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and taxes, if he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labour, who would plough the lands of the baron? Everyone would look after his own. But there are thousands of destitute persons ruined by wars, or drought, or pestilence. They have neither horse nor plough. (Iron was costly in the Middle Ages, and a draughthorse still more so.)

All these destitute creatures are trying to better their condition. One day they see on the road at the confines of our baron’s estate a notice-board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension that the labourer who is willing to settle on this estate will receive the tools and materials to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion of land rent free for a certain number of years. The number of years is represented by so many crosses on the sign-board, and the peasant understands the meaning of these crosses.

So the poor wretches swarm over the baron’s lands, making roads, draining marshes, building villages. In nine years he begins to tax them. Five years later he increases the rent. Then he doubles it. The peasant accepts these new conditions because he cannot find better ones elsewhere; and little by little, with the aid of laws made by the barons, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source of the landlord’s wealth. And it is not only the lord of the manor who preys upon him. A whole host of usurers swoop down upon the villages, multiplying as the wretchedness of the peasants increases. That is how things went in the Middle Ages. And to-day is it not still the same thing? If there were free lands which the peasant could cultivate if he pleased, would he pay £50 to some “shabble of a duke”[2] for condescending to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself with a lease which absorbed a third of the produce? Would he — on the métayer system — consent to give the half of his harvest to the landowner?

But he has nothing. So he will accept any conditions, if only he can keep body and soul together, while he tills the soil and enriches the landlord.

So in the nineteenth century, just as in the Middle Ages, the poverty of the peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread


Inflation forces poverty upon those with the least wealth. They then become desperate and will be willing to do just about anything they're told by those with wealth, as long as they can get enough scraps to feed themselves.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Peasants by definition weren't voluntary labor. They were owned by whomever owned the land, on pain of death. Their kids as well. They started it in the late roman empire when the economy and currency collapsed and everyone was walking off of their jobs as they couldn't pay for life, couldn't pay for taxes let alone life. The empire wouldn't take their own worthless currency as taxes in the latter periods, and they had a seperate currency for the army and their civil service types. Demanding taxes in gold and silver bullion, or services in kind. It's a long story. But after that all the big landowners, many of which operated big slave farms already, turned their estates into walled castles and became lords. The federal power collapsed with barbarian invasions of horse tribes, and the population welcomed it to get rid of the federal power.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago

That's entirely dependant upon region and time period. The world is a big place with many forms of peasantry over the years. It's not a homogenous group with a singular definition. This is a demonstration of a common form to get across a particular point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin

Have a read of the author's life, he knows what he's talking about. Not some random schmuck.

[–] jaennaet@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

which I don’t quite see as a goal the US should be striving towards.

You don't see it as a goal the US should be striving towards, but I doubt any good and sane person (ie. people who aren't conservatives) would see ICE kidnapping and murdering people as a goal to strive towards either, and yet…

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You mean several decades ago, china started that back after Nixon was it normalized relations? Idk when they joined the wto. They've been undervaluing their currency to boost exports the entire time. Also exploiting their workers, polluting their country, and the like, and in exchange they've gotten western capital to build their factories to produce everything, and hand them the technology to do it. They gave those corporations 99 year leases, but could take them in an instant, giving them an ultimate veto over the US Government.

[–] pmk@piefed.ca 6 points 1 day ago

If a country weakens their currency to boost exports or anything, and it's not part of a cooperative environment but instead hostile, won't other countries just respond with countermeasures like a round of QE or lowering interest rates?

[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Also...

Gold. It won't be repatriated to foreign countries.

Oil. Once that market is cornered (and green alternatives killed) you own the economy.

[–] galaxy_nova@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for the response. So what does an individual do in response to impending inflation? Convert money to assets? Convert to a different currency?

[–] howl2@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I have been converting to another currency, every penny I can

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 1 points 19 hours ago

Is it crypto?

[–] YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are several. US debt is then worth less. Exporting things becomes easier because they cost less. In theory we could get more tourists because it would cost less to vacation here.

But an unstable dollar means the percentage we return on bonds must be higher, importing things costs more, which affects (and affects) inflation. Travelling overseas costs us more. Finally, reduces American power in the world.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

It will also shake confidence in the US as safe, which could affect our ability to borrow. Which is a good thing if we can't get rid of these clowns it's going to happen it's just a matter of when they max out the credit and destroy the trust then print money to pay off the debt and cause runaway inflation.

[–] Butterphinger@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago

To shrink the gap between prisoner and worker.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

try and make US goods sellable, but then he triggered counter tariffs and boycotts.

[–] uberdroog@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Trump’s Misguided Plan to Weaken the Dollar | Harvard Kennedy School https://share.google/rpR1rqUVOa7OpbTx6

[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 60 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Gold has reached the highest valuation in decades. It's a sign people are moving away from the dollar as a store of wealth. The US hegemony is failing and China is picking up the slack. I hope the middle powers can unite as a single economic block and bring some stability. Trump is in his Nero phase.

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Honestly at this rate gold looks to be more in a bubble or unstable climb then anything.

The moment shit hits the fan the people start to unload in droves gold is goanna get fucked.

It's far too many eggs in one basket.

Likely as not, yes it'll be a bubble, once they move to a different currency than the dollar they'll sell off gold to purchase it.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm not an economist and macroeconomics make my eyes gloss over, but I'm sure seeing a lot of economists saying the dollar has less than a year left of being the world reserve currency. This seems like a bad idea... for us...but again I am no economist.

Can't wait to see how the fiscal conservatives spin this one.

[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

They've never been fiscally responsible, it's only ever been spin and messaging. So you'll likely see all the same hallmarks they have referenced in the past.

https://manhattan.institute/article/are-republicans-hypocrites-on-deficits-yes-but-there-is-more-to-the-story

Note that the above article is from a right wing think tank arguing in bad faith and expresses the modern take on fiscal responsibility.

It basically boils down to:

  • Social services bad
  • military and police spending good
  • tax breaks for businesses and the rich is best.
[–] hector@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago

Socialized losses, socialized costs and expenses, private profits. They are fucking communists really. It's fun to say too.

[–] howl2@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago

Yikes, ok I can't say im surprised, but where did you hear that?

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

The day trump got elected I wanted to invest in gold. Was going through divorce stuff and finances have been in a wild state since so never got to it. I don't have regrets on it but could have been nice if I was able to dump a chunk in when I wanted to

[–] rayyy@piefed.social 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The civil war is on - it's the rich versus the workers. They have divided the workers and they are being massacred.

[–] shane@feddit.nl 1 points 21 hours ago

I can't parse this. Does this mean the rich are being massacred or the workers are being massacred?

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 7 points 21 hours ago

I wonder what will happen to the dollar when oil is replaced by batteries

[–] dmtalon@infosec.pub 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He was right, I'm tired of 'winning'

[–] areakode@riskeratspizza.com 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Did you think "winning" was a joke? The billionaires have never won so hard!

[–] dmtalon@infosec.pub 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They were always going to win this game

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 2 points 22 hours ago

Oh well!! Time to ditch it as the petrodollar currency and for former allies to dump the US debt.

[–] mitkase@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Those damn liberals must be responsible!

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 points 23 hours ago

They have to acknowledge it's dropping before they can blame the libruls.

[–] Darkness343@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

Let's gooo. I won't have too much ofy third world money when I wanna buy from Amazon or eBay that way.

Keep sinking

[–] _Nico198X_@europe.pub 2 points 1 day ago

go baby, go!

[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 0 points 21 hours ago

Trump is a moron

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 0 points 22 hours ago
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