US President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policies risk harming “all US assets” and accelerating a long-term shift away from the dollar, an investment veteran has warned.
The comments by Mark Dowding, chief investment officer of fixed income at RBC Bluebay Asset Management, come after a week of panic-selling on US financial markets that drove up yields on US Treasury bills.
“It ends up hurting all US assets and … the dollar, and it puts the US in a bad situation,” he said, adding that the trade war may have triggered a “longer-term turning point” for the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency.
The way the tariffs are being handled is “so inept” that it also undermines Washington’s policy credibility, Dowding told the Post in an interview on Tuesday.
China is likely to reduce its purchases and holdings of the world’s safe-haven asset in the future, Dowding predicted, although he poured cold water on the idea that Beijing and Washington were on the verge of launching financial warfare.