Wall Street Journal

Sen. Rick Scott

August 30, 2026

For almost a century, the U.S. dollar has symbolized prosperity, strength and stability around the world. One reason is America’s global economic dominance. Another is the dollar’s status as the primary global reserve currency, held by central banks around the world. Both are critical to keeping America wealthy—and both are endangered by an ill-conceived push to end the U.S. dollar’s global dominance in the supposed interest of raising exports.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently told an interviewer that the dollar might not remain the global reserve currency if our nation loses its military and economic strength relative to competing global powers. If that happens, he said, “the world will be fragmented, and it’ll be very dangerous for us.”

He’s right. The dollar’s status as the dominant global reserve currency must be maintained. The use of the dollar in international settlements reduces exchange-rate risks and transaction costs, keeps demand for dollars high, and maintains its buying power for families working to achieve their American Dream. A strong U.S. dollar secures three advantages for Americans: lower prices, cheaper government debt and global power. If it loses strength, so does the American consumer.

Keeping the dollar as the world’s reserve currency maximizes American buying power globally, meaning Americans buy more from other countries for less. That includes wood to build houses, steel to build cars and food to eat. Those savings get passed on to the consumer, for whom paying less means saving money for retirement, a house or college education.

A recent study from the Paris-based Centre for Economic Policy Research estimates that losing reserve-currency status would shrink the dollar’s value by roughly 9% against foreign currencies. That means everything we buy from other countries would get more expensive. We saw what runaway inflation looked like under Joe Biden, and we don’t want a needless price jump.

Some will argue that maintaining our status as the global reserve currency makes American goods more expensive abroad, discouraging other countries from buying from us; but the data tells a different story. Thanks in part to President Trump’s trade policies, exports have increased 23%, adjusted for inflation, since he first took office in 2017—all while the dollar maintained reserve-currency status.

America exports more goods each year on average, with inflation-adjusted export growth amounting to 1,518% since 1970. Greater U.S. exports come from better trade policy, not diminished buying power.

And while Congress’s multitrillion-dollar deficit spending needs to end, the U.S. has avoided economic catastrophe only because we made a priority of preserving the dollar’s reserve status. Everyone—individuals, corporations and governments—trusts the dollar and trusts that the Treasury will always honor its debt, which allows the U.S. to finance our $40 trillion debt. Without the dollar’s reputation as a safe investment, we wouldn’t be able to sell enough bonds to keep the lights on, leading to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, without our status as the world’s lead supplier of safe assets, the sustainable level of American debt would be about 30% lower, leaving the U.S. with a bill it couldn’t afford.

Reserve-currency status also reduces the cost of borrowing. The Centre for Economic Policy Research study found a 90-basis-point rise in borrowing costs with the loss of reserve currency status. That means interest rates get more expensive for the government and for every American seeking a loan.

Most important, the dollar gives the U.S. global influence in foreign policy, pushing countries to align with us rather than with adversaries such as China. The dollar makes up almost 57% of foreign-exchange reserves, dominating international stores of wealth and transactions. Though it’s largely unseen, that’s American power overseas that helps American families at home.

Dollar dominance makes it easier to freeze the assets of terrorists and cartel members and gives more influence to U.S. sanctions, allowing America to impose penalties on our enemies more effectively. That keeps us safe by hurting terrorists’ ability to hurt us.

Our growing national debt threatens all of this. The most important step to keeping the dollar in power is to get our domestic spending under control and start paying off our national debt. Doing so would signal to those abroad who have purchased our debt that we won’t spend more than we can pay back. We will need time. It has taken decades to get this deep in debt—and it may take years to pay it off. But if we don’t, the hole gets bigger. Digging our way out starts with Congress’s curbing its spending addiction and returning to fiscal discipline for the sake of our economy and national security.

Without reserve-currency status, America would be weaker, families would have less opportunity, and China would get a golden opportunity to rewrite and isolate American businesses on the world stage. Beijing has already made it clear it’s watching our debt situation closely.

America faces a choice. We can maintain the dollar’s reserve currency status and with it put America first with economic, military and diplomatic strength. Or we can allow our adversaries to get a leg up on us, harm Americans and destroy 250 years of American exceptionalism. We shouldn’t let that happen.