Global ripple effect of sweeping US tariffs: uncertainty, instability

Dollar's demise?

Xie Jianhua, founder of the US-China E-commerce &Trading Chamber, told China Daily that the deeper crisis lies in how the US president's policy logic — including interference with the US Federal Reserve, "contempt for international norms, like threatening to annex Greenland or seize the Panama Canal" — and an erratic diplomatic stance, unravels the "social network" underlying the US dollar's dominance.

The dollar's hegemony relies on global trust in institutional stability, not intimidation, and "rising US Treasury yields, a plummeting dollar index, and soaring gold prices are the market's vote of no confidence in that trust," he said.

Xie added that continuing debt spirals, overusing tariffs, and trampling upon international rules, risk repeating the decline seen with the British pound, drawing parallels with financial crises of the 1930s and 1970s.

Gupta said trade issues are already impacting the US dollar. While a trade war-induced global recession could lead investors to "crowd into the dollar" which is traditionally seen as a safe haven, this would present the US with a conundrum.

The US wants a weaker dollar, but at the same time, they want to keep the dollar as the king of the currency jungle, Gupta said.

Solis said at the event there is "the possibility that folks begin to lose confidence in the US dollar".

The US aggressive tariff policies will likely undermine the US dollar's role as a global reserve currency. Other nations will shift to more stable financial assets due to unpredictable US monetary policy, Chris Pereira, the founder and CEO of iMpact, a communications and business consulting group, told China Daily. "And once the dollar's trust is gone, it's tough to restore," he said.