Worldwide Financial Planning

Hopefully you may remember my comments on dedollarisation in June 2023 – ‘it will happen’. This journey of explanation of dedollarisation turns to the calamity and farcical charade that is - tariffs.

After resuming their slide at the start of the week, global equity markets jumped on news that the highest tariffs would be delayed by 90 days. Did Donald Trump blink in the face of market turmoil, or does he think the threat of higher tariffs has done its job by forcing countries to the negotiating table?

You can have all the water in the world, but if the pipes are clogged or run through someone else’s tap, good luck getting a clean wine glass mate. That’s what we’re seeing now with global finance. The water - money - isn’t the only story anymore. It’s the pipes: how it flows, who controls the taps, and what happens when someone upstream decides to turn off the supply.

The US president unveiled a sweeping package of additional tariffs on US imports, with the largest hikes being added to goods from its biggest trade partners. But Trump and his trade advisers are in a very small minority that think these measures will be anything other than damaging to US and global economic growth.

Back in the 1990s, the dollar held over 70 per cent of global foreign exchange reserves. Today, it’s down to 58.4 per cent, and still falling. That’s not a collapse, but it’s a message.

By making a show of meeting its Stability Rule of reducing borrowing in the fifth year of any forecast, the chancellor laboured to show that despite borrowing rising in the short term, gilt investors just need to be patient to allow reforms and rising growth to tame borrowing. Muted market reaction shows the cuts have bought some time, but the small margin in the Chancellor’s forecast doesn’t allow a lot of room for further disruption.