The dollar is structurally overvalued given its external deficit. In any economy, such a deficit would have resulted in a sharp and lasting depreciation of its currency. This is not true for the greenback, which is the currency of the world’s largest economy, but also the international reserve currency and the currency of transactions worldwide. This gives it a special status.

However, devaluing it would reduce the external deficit, making the American economy less dependent on foreign savings flows.
But the depreciation of a currency, especially an international currency, cannot be decreed.

And when we talk about a significant depreciation of the dollar, we find historical benchmarks. This could be a guide, but none of these experiences are currently reproducible.

Let’s start again.
In April 1933, the United States left the Gold Exchange Standard, a monetary system based on gold. This system was the one that helped spread the American crisis of 1929/1930 to the rest of the world. By leaving this restrictive framework, the dollar adjusted abruptly.
In 1971, when Nixon proclaimed the non-convertibility of gold and the dollar, it was because the Bretton Woods system was running out of steam. The end of this monetary system generated significant volatility in the currencies of developed countries.
In 1933 and 1971, the monetary system was corseted and losing its effectiveness. There is no such rigid corset to be broken in the current monetary system.

In 1985, the dollar was at its highest, and all major countries were embarrassed by the situation. The Plaza Accord reflected a coordinated effort by the G5 central bankers to take action and reduce monetary imbalances. The system worked so well that the Louvre Accord was necessary two years later to try to stop the greenback’s slide.
The key point of this episode is the coordination of central bankers.

Following the tariff measures announced by Trump, such coordination is at least conditional on each country negotiating with Washington on the tariffs. Only an agreement between the negotiating countries and the US could trigger coordinated action by central banks. The process is therefore conditional and cannot be presented as a repeat of a past episode.

Currency depreciation isn’t spontaneous, especially if it’s considered the benchmark currency internationally, even if the White House wants it to. The story is also a little more complicated, since China, another global economic and political power, doesn’t want to negotiate on tariffs and is ready for a real showdown.
Financing American growth from the world may not be as easy as the White House anticipated.