It used to be that if you were worried about the future, you would move into dollars as the safe haven—in finance terms a countercyclical asset, which stays resilient when higher-risk assets fall. But if the United States’ own government and policies are unpredictable, and its economy is volatile, you will look for some other hedges instead. Chaos in the U.S., and particularly in the White House, is pushing investors to find alternatives to the dollar.

And so investment funds have been pouring into the precious metals, boosting their prices. While the current high price of silver reflects many factors, some of them technical and quite specific, the shift in risk attitudes has become pronounced over the last year.

The bottom line is that America is less of a safe haven than it used to be. When President Donald Trump announced his heavy tariff plan on “Liberation Day,” the dollar fell. That’s contrary to ordinary economic theory, which suggests that as Americans send fewer dollars abroad to buy imported goods, the dollar should rise. Traders, though, started to view the United States itself as a source of risk. It felt as if the right thing to do was to run away from the dollar. As a result, the dollar is down nearly 10 percent this year.

Here is more from me at The Free Press.