On the program today, the American dollar and American retail, we're going to do macro and micro.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdall Tuesday, today, 17 June.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

On the theory that not too many people actually carry cold, hard cash on them these days,

rather than ask you to take a dollar bill out of your wallet,

do me a favor and just picture it in your mind's eye, would you? Washington on the front, that pyramid thing

on the back. Also, the greenback is having a very rough 2025, down almost 10% year-to-date against

the euro, down more than 8% against the Mexican peso, same versus the yen.

For all of its recent troubles, though, and for the past 80 years, the U.S. dollar has been the

global reserve currency. Whether your company was based in Italy or Japan or Mexico, and whether

you were selling or buy in oil or crops or machinery across borders, businesses want to

pay and be paid in dollars.

It's more stable and more liquid than every other currency out there.

And it still is, to be clear.

But as Marketplace's Matt Levin reports to get us going today, since the Trump administration's trade wars have come upon us, businesses are reconsidering their options.

Paula Cummings has been getting more calls from American importers lately. She's the head of

foreign exchange sales at U.S. Bank. First, there was the Midwest Timber Company. An Eastern European

machinery supplier wanted to be paid in euros. And then came the California buyer who sources produce from

south of the border. This Mexican supplier farming conglomerate had always preferred to receive

dollars and now had said, go ahead and pay us and pay so instead. Both of those U.S.

companies were game. They could basically negotiate cheaper prices if they agreed to ditch the dollar.

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