《经济学周刊》：美元：何去何从？

10 July 2026 Richard de Chazal, CFArdechazal@williamblair.com+44 20 7868 4489 Economics WeeklyThe Dollar – Where to FromHere? Louis Mukamalmukama@williamblair.com+1 312 364 8867 William Blair At the start of each year, there is often a strong consen-sus narrative around the expected behavior of the U.S.dollar. At the start of 2025, the consensus was that thedollar would suffer on the back of the introduction oftariffs and, in our view, a Trump administration thatseemed to regard the Nixon administration’s 1971 dollarshock as the desired playbook for gaining a competitiveedge in global trade. In this case, the dollar did end updeclining by 13% from its peak at the start of January2025 to its trough at the end of January 2026. At thestart of this year, the consensus was for a slightly weakerdollar. Since the end of January, however, the dollar hasgained almost 6%.In thisEconomics Weekly,we onceagain discuss the dollar—what is driving it in thenear term and in which direction it is likely to headover the longer term. Up until earlier this week (before renewed hostilities inthe Middle East), the market view seemed to be that withoil prices now coming back down, the Fed will just needone or at most two small tweaks to rates before resumingthe easing cycle. Indeed, looking at the fed funds futuresmarket, expectations are for one rate hike by Septemberor October and a smaller possibility of another increasein first quarter 2027, before rate cuts resume in the sec-ond half of 2027. At this point, with new Fed Chair KevinWarsh keen to restore price stability at 2% inflation, wesuspect that three rate increases will be needed betweennow and the end of 2027 and that any rate cuts for themoment are still off the table. Meanwhile, with the European economy struggling toget to its feet—while also being sandwiched betweenChina and the U.S. and used as a new dumping ground forChinese products (in particular automobiles) as the gatesto the U.S. are now closed—there seems limited room forfurther rate increases. Further Dollar Strength Looks Likely NearTerm The futures market is not a very good predictor of futuredollar moves, but it is somewhat useful in crudely gauginginvestor sentiment. Having said that, we need to be care-ful with interpretations, as the market is also often usedas a hedge against a long or short position in the cashmarket or another form of economic or financial markettransaction. Today, after the market had been deeplyshort the dollar through late 2025 (the most since 2007),current dollar sentiment has swung back to being moder-ately bullish (exhibit 1). Dollar Weakness Over the Medium toLonger Term Looking a little further out, we continue to believe thedollar will soften, but not collapse. We also do not see thedollar losing its status as the world’s reserve currency ofchoice for many years to come (exhibit 2). As it stands, no other market comes close to being ableto provide the deep and liquid capital markets thattheU.S. does. One potential alternative, the euro, continuesto suffer from highly fragmented capital markets andthe lack of a unified bond market. Meanwhile China’syuan is locked up under tight capital controls and ismanaged by a less-than-democratic government. Lastly, This dollar strength looks likely to continue in the nearterm, and we continue to believe that inflation will likelyremain stickier than the current consensus seems to be-lieve. Furthermore, the economy still looks solid, and theunfolding AI- and energy-related capex boom likely hasmuch more room to run. William Blair Today, with debts and deficits significantly higher thanthey were in the mid-1990s, no sense of fiscal rectitudefrom either party, and the cost of servicing that debt rapid-ly increasing, the Treasury may find itself having to choosebetween 1) allowing yields to rise in order to finance thatdebt (resulting in a strong dollar) or 2) suppressing yieldsvia some new form of Fed-Treasury Accord and financialrepression, but as a corollary no longer being able to sup-port the dollar (exhibits 4 and 5). Effectively, the dollar willact as a release valve by making exports more competitiveand lowering the current account deficit (thereby reducingthe need for foreign investment), which in turn increasesnominal GDP and promotes slightly higher inflation. Theincreasingly dramatic weakness in the yen of late indicatesthat this is the path Japan has chosen to follow. whilecryptocurrencies and stablecoins are likely toincrease in prominence, they are a long way fromdethroning the dollar. Nevertheless, the main anchor helping to drag the dollarlower in the coming years will likely be the large and grow-ing size of its debt and deficits. During the mid- to late 1990s, the U.S. economy was ableto sustain strong growth, low inflation, falling budgetdeficits and debts, but still have a strong dollar, whichtypically requires relatively higher interest rates. Thiswas due to the combination of globalization (bringing