Analyzing Trends in U.S. Dollar Decline and Trade Policy

Our U.S. Public Policy and Currency analysts, Ariana Salvatore and Andrew Watrous, discuss why the dollar fell at the beginning of the first Trump administration and whether it could happen again this year. 

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Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Public Policy Strategist.

Andrew Watrous: And I'm Andrew Watrous, G10 FX Strategist here at Morgan Stanley.

Ariana Salvatore: Today, we'll focus on the U.S. dollar and how it might fare in global markets during the first year of the new Trump administration.

It's Tuesday, March 4th at 10am in New York.

So, Andrew, a few weeks ago, James Lord came on to talk about the foreign exchange volatility. Since then, tariffs and trade policy have been in the news. Last night at midnight, 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada went into effect, in addition to 10 percent on China. So, let's set the scene for today's conversation. Is the dollar still dominant in global currency markets?

Andrew Watrous: Yes, it is. The U.S. dollar is used in about $7 trillion worth of daily FX transactions. And the dollar's share of all currency transactions has been pretty stable over the last few decades. And something like 80 percent of all trade finance is invoiced in dollars, and that share has been pretty stable too.

A big part of that dollar dominance is because of the depth and safety of the Treasury security market.

Ariana Salvatore: That makes sense. And the dollar fell in 2017, the first year of the Trump administration. Why did that happen?

Andrew Watrous: Yeah, so 2017 gets a lot of client attention because the Fed was hiking, there was a lot of uncertainty about would happen in NAFTA, and the U.S. passed a fiscally expansionary budget bill that year.

So, people have asked us, ‘Why the U.S. dollar went down despite all those factors?’ And I think there are three reasons. One is that even though the possibility that the U.S. could leave NAFTA was all over the headlines that year, U.S. tariffs didn't actually go up. Another factor is that global growth turned out to be really strong in 2017, and that was helped in part by fiscal policy in China and Europe. And finally, there were some political risks in Europe that didn't end up materializing.

So, investors took a sigh of relief about the possibility that I think had been priced in a bit that the Eurozone might break up. And then a lot of those factors went into reverse in 2018 and the U.S. dollar went up.

Ariana Salvatore: So, applying that framework with those factors to today, is it possible that we see a repeat of 2017 in terms of the U.S. dollar decline?

Andrew Watrous: Yeah, I think it's likely that the U.S. dollar continues to go lower for some of the same reasons as we saw in 2017. So, I think that compared to 2017, there's a lot more U.S. dollar positive risk premium around trade policy. So, the bar is higher for the U.S. dollar to go up just from trade headlines alone.

And just like in 2017, European policy developments could be a tailwind to the euro. We've been highlighting the potential for German fiscal expansion as European defense policy comes into focus. And unlike in 2017, when the Fed was raising rates, now the Fed is probably going to cut more this year. So that's a headwind to the dollar that didn't exist back in 2017.

So, on trade, Ariana. What developments do you expect? Do you think that Trump's new policies will make 2025 different in any way from 2017?

Ariana Salvatore: So, taking a step back and looking at this from a very high level, a few things are different in spite of the fact that we're actually talking about a lot of similar policies. Tariffs and tax policy were a big focus in 2017 to 2019, and to be sure, this time around, they are too, but in a slightly different way.

So, for example, on tax cuts, we're not talking about bringing rates lower on the individual and corporate side. We're talking about extending current policy. And on tariffs and trade policy, this round I would characterize as much broader, right? So, Trump has scoped in a broader range of trading partners into the discussion like Mexico and Canada; and is talking about a starting point that level-wise is much higher than what we saw in the whole 2018 2019 trade friction period.

The highest rate back then we ever saw was 25 percent, and that was on the final batch of Chinese goods, that list four. Whereas this time, we're talking about 25 percent as a starting point for Mexico and Canada.

I think sequencing is also a really important distinction. In 2017, we saw the tax cuts through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) come first, followed by trade tensions in 2018 to 2019. This time around, it's really the inverse. Republicans just passed their budget resolution in the House. That lays the groundwork for the tax cut extensions.

But in the meantime, Trump has been talking about tariff implementation since before he was even elected. And we've already had a number of really key trade related catalysts in the just six weeks or so that he's been in office.

Andrew Watrous: So, you mentioned expectations for fiscal policy. What are recent developments there, and what do you think will happen with U.S. fiscal?

Ariana Salvatore: I mentioned the budget resolution in the house that was passed last week. And you can really think of that as the starting point for the reconciliation process to kick off. And consequently, the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

To be clear, we think that House Republicans will be able to align behind extending most of the expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but that's still in the books until the end of 2025. So, we see many months needed to kind of build this consensus among cohorts of the Republican caucus in Congress, and we already know there's some key sticking points in the discussion.

What happens with the SALT [State and Local Tax] cap? What sort of clawbacks occur with the Inflation Reduction Act? All these are disagreements that right now are going to need time to work their way through Congress. So not a lot of alignment just yet. We think it's going to take most of the year to get there.

But ultimately, we do see an extension of most of the TCJA, which is like I said, current law until the end of 2025.

But Andrew from what I understand when it comes to fiscal policy, there are really two stages in terms of the market impact that we saw in the last administration. Can you walk us through those?

Andrew Watrous: Yeah, so one lesson from 2016 to 2018 is that there were really two stages of when fiscal developments boosted the dollar. The first was right after the U.S. election in 2016, and the second was much later after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed. So right after the 2016 election, within a couple of weeks, the dollar index rallied from 98 up to 103, and 10-year Treasury yields rose as well.

And then things sort of moved sideways in between these two stages. Ten-year Treasury yield just moved sideways. Fiscal wasn't as supportive to the U.S. dollar. And as we know, the dollar went down. And then we had the second stage more than a year later. So, the TCJA was passed in December 2017. And then the dollar rallied after that along with the rise in Treasury yield.

So, we think that now, what we've seen is actually very similar to what happened in 2017, where the dollar and yields moved a lot after the 2024 election; but now the budget reconciliation process probably won't be a tailwind to the dollar until after a tax cuts extension passes Congress. And as you mentioned, that's not going to be for many, many months. So, in the interim, we think there's a lot of room for the dollar to go down.

Ariana Salvatore: And just to level set our expectations there to your point, it is probably going to be later this year. House Republicans have to align on a number of key sticking points. So, we have passage somewhere on the third or fourth quarter of 2025.

But when we think about the fiscal picture, aside from the deficit and the macro impacts, a really key component is going to be what these tax changes mean for the equity market. The extension of certain tax policies will matter more for certain sectors versus others. For example, we know that extending some of the corporate provisions, aside from the lower rate, will have an impact across domestically oriented industries like industrials, healthcare, and telecom.

But Andrew, to bring it back to this discussion, I want to think a little bit more about how we can loop in our expectations for the equity market and map that to certain dollar outcomes. How do you think that this as a barometer has changed, if at all, from Trump's first term?

Andrew Watrous: Yeah, currency strategists like me love talking about yield differentials. But from 2016 to 2018, the U.S. dollar did not trade in line with yield differentials. Instead, in the initial years of President Trump's first term, equities were a much better barometer than interest rates for where the U.S. dollar would go.

After President Trump was elected in 2016, U.S. stocks really outperformed stocks in the rest of the world, and the U.S. dollar went up. Then in 2017, stocks outside the U.S. caught up to the move in U.S. stocks, and the U.S. dollar fell. Then in 2018, all that went into reverse, and U.S. stocks started outperforming again, and the U.S. dollar went up.

So, what we've been seeing in stocks today really echoes 2017, not 2018. Stocks outside the U.S. have caught up to the post election rise in U.S. stocks. And so, just like it did in 2017, we think that the U.S. dollar will decline to catch up to that move in relative stock indices.

Ariana Salvatore: Finally, Andrew, we already discussed the U.S. dollar negative drivers from 2017. But what happened to these drivers the following year in 2018? And is that any indication for what might happen in 2026?

Andrew Watrous: So 2018, as you mentioned, does offer a blueprint for how the U.S. dollar could go up. So, for example, if trade tensions evolve in a direction where our economists would have to significantly downwardly revise their global growth forecasts, then the U.S. dollar could start to look more attractive as a safe haven. And in 2018, there was a big rise in long-end Treasury yields. That's not what we're calling for; but if that were to happen, then the U.S. dollar could catch a bid.

Ariana Salvatore: Andrew, thanks for taking the time to talk.

Andrew Watrous: Great speaking with you, Ariana.

Ariana Salvatore: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.