Dollar Drops From #1 to #7 Preferred Currency

Just finished nibbling on a freshly baked croissant at a no-name neighborhood joint near my apartment in Lisbon. Washed it down with an iced coffee. Cost: €1.90, or $2.22 in the increasingly funny money that is the US dollar.

In other news, Donald Trump has announced —according to a news item I read while waiting on my iced coffee and croissant—a 50% tariff against Brazil, the country from which Uncle Sam imports the most coffee beans.

The move lays bare the reality that Trump Tariffs are not really about leveling the playing field with countries that abuse, cheat, and rip-off America.

We’ll come back to that…

First, I want to discuss a survey conducted this past spring, from the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, a global think-tank. OMFIF, as it’s known, surveyed 75 central banks around the world. The takeaway: 70% of central banks say they’re hesitant to invest in the US dollar because of America’s political environment.

That 70% is more than double the percentage recorded a year ago, a pretty clear indication of how fast sentiment can shift.

That alone is reason enough for me own gold… which, honestly, is my message once again today.

I know folks are probably getting tired of my focus on gold, but gold is a crucial asset to own these days. That’s not my message… that’s the gold market’s message.

Gold has surged to near all-time highs because global markets are wringing their hands about what’s going down inside America these days. A country that once was stable as Mount Rushmore now seems as stable as a bowl of orange Jell-O (“See that wiggle, taste that jiggle.” Who remembers that from the ’80s?)

Per OMFIF researchers:

This dramatic shift in sentiment coincides with the introduction of “reciprocal tariff” policies by the US administration in early April 2025. These tariffs impact markets and have triggered significant market volatility, creating ripple effects throughout the global financial system and undermining confidence in US-denominated assets.

Perhaps most telling is the dollar’s dramatic fall in popularity among reserve managers. The once-dominant currency has plummeted from being the most preferred currency in the 2024 survey to seventh place in 2025—a remarkable reversal in just twelve months.

At this point, the dollar might as well be asking, “Where’s the love? Remember all I’ve done for you over the decades?”

To which the market is saying, “Who dis?”

In response to what I see unfolding globally because of anti-dollar sentiment, I’ve been adding to my gold holdings in recent months. I snapped up a mid-tier miner as well as a small-cap gold streaming company that owns no mines but rather collects a stream of gold produced by individual mines in which it has invested.

To the rest of the world, America’s on the wrong path to the wrong destination.

Instead of riding this to the obvious end, the world is choosing to jump off because the economic and tax strategies the US is pursuing make no sense, unless you’re a yacht owner.

For the rest of us, tariffs are a tax on our spending, while Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is little more than a paean to the super-rich and a drain on the middle-class wallet. There really is no other way to describe a bill that cuts taxes on the wealthiest Americans while adding as much as $5 trillion to the national debt.

Pretty much everything the world is worried about vis-à-vis the dollar is wrapped up in the profligacy of the Big Beautiful Bill and Trump’s newly announced 50% tariff on Brazil. That announcement undermines Trump’s insistence that tariffs are all about leveling the playing field by imposing them on countries that abuse and rip-off America by running huge trade surpluses with Uncle Sam.

Brazil, it turns out, runs a trade deficit with America—meaning Brazil buys from the US more goods than it sells to America… which raises the obvious question: Exactly what playing field is Trump trying to level when the playing field is already tilted in favor of the US?

The answer is that Trump’s Brazil bashing has zero to do with trade and everything to do with trying to pressure the Brazilian legal system against prosecuting a former president/ strongman, Jair Bolsonaro, often referred to as the Brazilian Trump.

The world looks at that and rightly thinks, “The US is no longer a serious country. Its government is now a tool for one man to impose his wants on the world. I’m out.”

And I know some people will be mad that I say that. Alas, it is exactly how the world is looking at America these days. The world’s actions (and central bank actions) in abandoning the dollar are irrefutable proof of that.

Thing is, the mirror very often shows us what we don’t want to see, but that doesn’t mean the mirror is lying. Just that the person gazing at the mirror hates the truth and would rather such inconvenient realities not be mentioned.

But I’ve never really cared about inconvenience.

I care about helping Field Notes and Global Intelligence readers protect their wealth from the dots that are connecting.

And when 75 global central banks are telling surveyors that they’re hesitant to own the dollar, that the dollar is now 7th on their list of assets, and that they’re losing faith in American government at the highest level… that’s a dot you absolutely have to pay attention too, regardless of your political stripes.

Neither Team Red nor Team Blue will protect you from what’s happening—and will continue to happen—to the greenback.

But I know a color that will absolutely shield you from the storm ahead.

Gold.