Well, howdy there, internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump damaging the dollar.

We're just going to start off with a statement that really frames what's happening,

from Jonas Golderman over at Capital Economics.

Quote,

this is the worst start to the year for the dollar since 1973,

the year that Nixon took the U.S. off gold.

It does feel like a turning point,

and that the dollar is probably now in a downward trend on a multi-year horizon.

That sounds like dramatic rhetoric or clickbait, but that's right on.

Trump has given us the weakening dollar that has dropped by the highest percentage in half a century.

The standard measure is the U.S. dollar index. It's an index that measures the U.S.

dollar against other key currencies. It's down about 10% since January. Obviously, that's bad,

but what does it mean for the average person? In the simplest terms, unless your net worth increased by at least 11% since Trump took office,

you're actually poorer than you were when he took over.

Now, does that really mean anything to the average person?

Especially those who, like most Americans, have all their holdings

in U.S. currency. Yes. In short, it raises costs for imported products and materials. Yes,

this is something else jacking up the cost of imports on top of Trump's tariffs. It tends to exacerbate inflation.

Is this Trump's fault? Joseph Gagnon, with the Peterson Institute for International Economics,

explained it this way. If you have policies that foreigners think don't make sense and you're actually having an

out-of-control fiscal deficit, downgrading of U.S. credit rating, and just blaming foreigners.

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