—By Peter S. Green

While the ups of the stock market and the downs of cryptocurrency have been capturing the attention of investors and market watchers, a quieter downturn has been underway since the beginning of the Trump Administration, as the U.S. dollar weakens. Generally, a weak dollar should be good for the economy, lowering the cost of U.S. goods on the world market, and boosting jobs and manufacturing at home. After all, by keeping the yuan artificially low, China built itself into the world’s fastest-growing economy.

The dollar is down nearly 14% against the euro since Donald Trump was inaugurated, and the U.S. Dollar index $DXY, a broader measure of the dollar’s strength, is down 11.5%. Overall exports are up 5%, but a lot of that is due to exports of civilian aircraft (one company, Boeing $BA , got safety clearance to resumemaking 737 jets) and gold, whose price is up 70% in the last 12 months.

“When you get a weaker dollar, it does tend to boost manufacturing and exports, and help certain service sectors that can export their services globally, such as tech,” notes Joe Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist for RSM, a global network of consulting and accounting firms focused on middle-market companies. But he adds, “the other part of this is that when the dollar depreciates, you’re creating conditions for greater inflation, and everybody’s purchasing power declines, including those manufacturing firms and tech firms that are exporting their software.”

But this time, that logic isn’t holding up, said Brusuelas. Despite relatively contained inflation, at about 2.7%, he said investors have shifted their focus on risk away from inflation and a stronger economy to what he called “the sustainability of the U.S. fiscal path,” and the “unpredictability” coming out ofWashington which has undermined global investors’ faith in the dollar as the ultimate safe haven.

“If you cut taxes and you increase tariffs, the value of the dollar should go up,” said Brusuelas. “The problem is those policies were put in place alongside other policies that caused global investors to respond adversely by focusing on the unfunded tax cuts and the unwise and erratic implementation of trade policy.”

Take soybeans, for instance. In 2024, the US accounted for about 21% of China’s soybean imports by value, while Argentina had about 3.9%. In 2025, the U.S. share was just 15%, while Argentina’s share nearly doubled to 7%. Most of that decline was because of tariffs placed on China in the first half of last year, as the Trump administration sought, without much success, to cut the U.S. trade deficit. “Turn over the apple cart, and you’re going to spill some fruit,” said Brusuelas.

Last week, a group of farmers and former agriculture officials warned in a letter to Congress that the Trump Administration’s trade policies risked “a widespread collapse of American agriculture.”

Javier Palomarez, CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council, says a lot of his members are hurting from the weaker dollar, as everything from imported construction material to parts for bicycles and technology gets more expensive. It also drives up interest rates, as the U.S. Treasury has to offer higher dollar-denominated returns to attract investors. “Our number one challenge has always been access to capital and credit, and a weaker dollar makes it even harder to secure a loan,” Palomarez said. “A weaker dollar means less purchasing power on Main Street, higher inflation, higher operating costs.”

Some of the stresses on U.S. business are transitional, said Steve Wyett, chief investment officer at BOK Financial, part of the Bank of Oklahoma. As the U.S. tries to reduce its dependence on imports (through tariffs) and export more (through tax breaks), there’s what he calls a “timing differential.” “That’s where the dollar can play its part as a relief valve,” said Wyett. “It makes our exports to Europe more affordable to Europe.”

But it’s not clear that the declining dollar is going to bring more investment to the U.S., or even bolster the economy, notes Dominic Pappalardo, chief multi-asset strategist for Morningstar Wealth $MORN. The growing U.S. debt, at over $38 trillion, is “problematic and unsustainable for the long term,” he said, and combined with rising interest rates in other countries, particularly Japan, investors are moving money out of the U.S. that also puts downward pressure on the dollar, which Pappalardo says is still too expensive. About a year ago, he notes, the dollar was the third most-expensive currency among 34 covered by Morningstar. Now it’s about the 10th priciest and it still has room to fall, probably in the single digits, he said.

Watch Big Business This Week on Cheddar—and YouTube!Big Businesses mentioned this week:

$DXY ( ▼ 0.96% )  $BA ( ▲ 1.28% )  $MORN ( ▼ 0.9% )  $AAL ( ▼ 1.74% )  $DAL ( ▼ 2.72% )  $UAL ( ▼ 4.13% )  $SBUX ( ▼ 2.36% )  $KHC ( ▼ 2.66% )  $PSKY ( ▼ 6.99% )  $WBD ( ▼ 0.25% )  $NFLX ( ▼ 4.72% )  $LHX ( ▼ 0.1% ) 

The usual suspects

• Coffee, tea, or profit-sharing? Pilots and flight crews at American Airlines $AAL say the company’s CEO should go, after they found their end-of-year profit share was worth about $150 per employee. At 0.3%, that contrasts with Delta’s $DAL profit share of 8.9% of profits or nearly four weeks’ average pay per employee, and United’s $UAL profit share of about two weeks’ pay. And it’s not just the profit-sharing. American’s flight cancellation rate is the highest of all major U.S. airlines, and despite having more flights and more domestic passengers than its major rivals, American reported a record $54.6 billion in revenue for 2025. With net profits of $111 million. The unions say it’s time for CEO Robert Isom to cash in his miles and fly home. “We require leaders who are willing, equipped, and empowered to get the house in order,” the Allied Pilots Association union said in a letter to the airline’s board. Investors echo the discontent: American shares are down 12.5% in the past year, while shares in Delta and United are both up about 10.3%.
• It ain’t just lemon pound cake anymore: As Starbucks $SBUX $100-million CEO Brian Niccol continues his revamp of the venerable coffee chain, Starbucks is rolling back its menu slimdown, adding more food options (well, snacks, really) and drinks in a major update. Now on the menu: Yuzu-filled croissants and a strawberry matcha loaf, along with a new basic dark brew called 1971 (the year the first Starbucks opened in Seattle). Starbucks’ share price has been on a bit of a rollercoaster since Niccol took over in September 2024, up just 4.9% since then. While the stock has seen overall growth under his leadership, it has experienced significant volatility, reaching a 52-week high of $117.46 in March 2025 before paring gains as investors weighed the long-term execution of his “Back to Starbucks” turnaround plan. It’s down 17% since then. Compare that to the S&P 500, which is compared to the S&P 500, which is up 16.8% over the same period, and you’ve got a 33% difference.
• Lobster trapped: It takes a lot of work to survive when you’re an endangered species. That’s what Red Lobster CEO Damola Adamolekun is finding out, two years into his effort to turn around the troubled casual dining seafood chain. After closing 130 restaurants during its 2024 bankruptcy, Adamolekun told the Wall Street Journal that he’s looking at closing more of the less profitable locations. A big part of the problem? Not those all-you-can-eat shrimp deals, but a 2014 move by a previous owner, PE firm Golden Gate Capital, to cash out by selling the chain’s real estate and tying it down in long-term leases. Well, that and the rising prices, dimming consumer confidence, and a pandemic-induced decline in eating out. New offerings, like the $28 boil bag, boosted foot traffic 18% last summer. But the biggest challenge to profitability is the leases on the 550 remaining restaurants that often tie poorly performing restaurants to more profitable ones with the same landlord.
• On second thought, I WILL have ketchup with my mac ‘n’ cheese. New CEO Steve Cahillane says he’s icing plans to split food giant Kraft Heinz $KHC, and instead will end what he called a decade of underinvesting in promoting its brands. He says the company will spend $600 million on sales, marketing, and R&D. Kraft and Heinz merged in 2015, with the backing of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.A, but even Berkshire’s new CEO, Greg Abel, still the food giant’s biggest shareholder, said the rethink was a good idea. And Kraft Heinz sure needs some new ideas. Its share price is down 15.5% in the past year, and 45% since the merger, and it’s had nine straight quarters of declining sales. “It certainly didn’t turn out to be a brilliant idea to put them together,” Buffett told CNBC in October, lamenting the fact that Berkshire had no say in the decision to split, despite holding about 27.5% of the company’s stock. “But I don’t think breaking them apart will fix it,” he added.
• Paramount pulls out the stops: Larry and David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance $PSKY says it’s added some bells and whistles to its $30-a-share offer for Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD, promising to pay 25 cents a share every three months, if its bid doesn’t close by the end of 2026. It also offered to pay the $2.8 billion breakup fee that WBD would owe rival Netflix $NFLX if it rejects the Netflix bid of about $27.50 a share. WBD’s board says it worries that Paramount won’t be able to close the deal, saying it’s too dependent on debt and financing by foreign investors, including a Middle Eastern investment fund, which could lead regulators to block a deal. But Paramount may have the regulatory approval angle covered: Larry Ellison is a close friend of President Donald Trump, and son David Ellison, the Paramount CEO, met twice with Trump at the White House last week, CNN reports. A few days later, Trump told NBC he wasn’t involved in the talks. Two days after that, news broke that the Dept. of Justice was investigating whether the deal would give Netflix potential monopoly power in the streaming industry. Meanwhile, Ancora, an activist investor group, says it’s amassed a $200 million stake in WBD and favors the Paramount deal. “Paramount Skydance rather materially just addressed most of the Warner Bros Discovery Board’s concerns,” Seaport Research analyst David Joyce wrote in a note this week.
• EV havoc: Ford $F said it’s taking a $900 million charge in the fourth quarter from the tariffs, after the White House cut a tariff credit plan by more than half. Together with a previously announced charge of $19.5 billion to roll back its EV plans, Ford announced an $11.1 billion loss for the fourth quarter, its largest ever, after a profit of $1.8 billion a year earlier. Revenue of $45.9 billion was down 5% from a year earlier. Ford says EV losses will continue for three years. Altogether, Ford, GM, and Chrysler owner Stellantis have announced more than $50 billion in charges for cutting back on EVs, largely due to rollbacks in government tax credits and emission rules, and in government-sponsored expansion of charging stations.
• I spy with my little car: After transit authorities in Norway and Denmark found that Chinese bus maker Yutong could remotely shut down their buses, U.S. regulators are now banning cars made or sold in the U.S. from using any software that connects to the cloud. The fear: Chinese state-linked actors could use a car’s sensors to track Americans or interfere with their driving. Automakers have until March 17 to certify that their cars and parts don’t use Chinese-written code. Chinese-made high-tech cars will have to be disconnected from the cloud. The rule has prompted a flurry of M&A deals as Chinese firms try to sell control of their companies to non-Chinese owners by the deadline.

The short stack

• You bet I will! These are boom times for prediction markets. Kalshi $KALSHI CEO Tarek Mansour said Super Bowl Sunday trading volume blew past $1 billion, up 28-fold from last year, with more than $100 million bet on what Bad Bunny’s first song would be. Meanwhile, the casino industry says Kalshi and its rival Polymarket $POLYMARKET are in fact online gambling platforms, and should pay gambling taxes and be regulated just like casinos and online sports books, like DraftKings $DKNG and FanDuel. States including Massachusetts and Nevada are trying to ban prediction markets from sports bets, a move that could cripple the industry. About three-fourths of Kalshi’s trading volume (and its commissions) comes from sports. Meanwhile, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research has found that Kalshi bettors predict economic news and data just about as well as a room full of economists with Ivy League PhDs. Kalshi markets, the paper said, “yield well-calibrated, rapidly updating density forecasts on important economic variables.” In other words, they get it right.
• Heavyweight battle: Danish Wegovy-maker NovoNordisk $NVO wants a U.S. court to block telehealth portal Hims & Hers $HIMS to stop selling compounded versions of Novo’s patented semaglutide weight-loss pill. Hims was authorized to compound the drug because of a supply shortage in the U.S. But Novo says it’s ramped up U.S. production, and that shortage is over. The FDA is with Novo on this one, but the fight may drag on.
• Bit of a blunder: A clerical error at South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb led to what could have been the second-worst crypto crisis in blockchain history. Instead of handing out rewards worth a total of 620,000 Korean won, worth about $430, the exchange handed out prizes totaling 620,000 Bitcoins, worth about $42 billion. The exchange was able to halt all the transactions within about 30 minutes, but still, recipients cashed out about 100 bitcoins, at the time worth about $9 million, and their sell-off may have helped propel a wider Bitcoin decline. More worrying: How Bithumb was able to hand out 620,000 Bitcoins, when it only held a reserve of 50,000 coins.

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Trumplandia

• It looks good on paper: The Trump Administration’s growing pile of stakes in major U.S. corporations may look good on the books, but it doesn’t appear to be doing much good for the U.S. economy. Rare earths miner MP Materials’ $MP stock has doubled since the Pentagon announced it would take a stake of up to 15% in the company, to secure a source of the raw materials needed for military equipment. Intel’s $INTC share price has more than doubled since the Commerce Department took a 10% stake in August 2025. Defense contractor L3Harris Technologies $LHX is flat since a January announcement that the Pentagon was investing $1 billion in the production of rocket fuel, and could turn that into shares in an IPO of the rocket fuel division later this year. Governments have never been good at picking the winners in business, and may even be stifling nascent competition. “It is an invisible barrier to startups and new market entrants,” Scott Lincicome, of the Cato Institute, told CNBC. “Why would you ever want to enter a market that you know your chief competitor is backed by the U.S. government?”
• Everybody wants a job, but how many are there to go around? A long-awaited employment report released Wednesday suggests more people had been hired in January than had been expected, lowering the unemployment rate to 4.3% from 4.4%, and appearing to give the Fed an excuse — if it wants one — to lower interest rates without boosting unemployment. But the numbers at this point are best guesses based on limited information — mainly data from payroll processing firms and state unemployment offices. That point was hammered home with accompanying revisions to last year’s numbers, delayed by the government shutdown last year that check the early numbers against unemployment insurance tax records. The revisions showed an astounding 898,000 fewer people were employed in March 2025 than previously thought. That means the U.S. added only 181,000 jobs in 2025, 70% fewer jobs than the 584,000 new jobs initially reported. Worse yet, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released last week showed a massive drop in December in the number of unfilled jobs, suggesting that despite the January uptick, future job growth ill be weak. Even as the economy continues to grow, companies are cutting back on pay increases and hiring, instead prioritizing productivity, technology adoption, and cost discipline. Economists are calling it a “jobless expansion.”