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(Bloomberg) -- To some in financial markets it’s known as the debasement trade. To others it’s selling, hedging or even “quiet quitting” America.

Whatever they call it, currency traders from Tokyo to New York started piling back in last week, unleashing a selloff that drove the US dollar into its deepest slide since President Donald Trump’s April trade-war salvos.

At the heart of it, again, is Trump, whose second term in office has witnessed an almost 10% tumble in the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index that’s sent it to the lowest levels since 2022.

His renewed tariff threats, effort to intimidate the Federal Reserve into cutting interest rates, claims to dominance over the Western Hemisphere and willingness to take on European allies by pushing for a US takeover of Greenland led many investors to pull back their dollar exposure. Political polarization and mounting fiscal risks at home aren’t helping either.

Others are back buying insurance to protect against a deeper decline that would drag the value of their US stocks and bonds down along with it, in turn adding more weight.

Also lurking is the suspicion, which burst into view publicly this week, that for all the lip service US officials give to having a strong dollar policy, the administration wants — or at least won’t stand in the way of — a weaker currency that would make US products cheaper overseas.

That’s leading to a conclusion that’s been steadily taking hold across financial markets: The US president’s America-first, zero-sum world view and stark break with the post-war economic order is creating new risks for foreign investors who have snapped up US assets for years — and, in turn, helped finance the government’s debt burden by buying trillions of dollars worth of Treasury bonds.

The dollar is “moving along the path of least resistance – weaker,” said Padhraic Garvey, head of research for the Americas at ING Bank in New York. “It’s the unwritten preference of the administration — but not too weak, too fast — and not getting to uncomfortable levels.”

Such doubts sent the dollar down 1.3% in January, its deepest monthly loss since August. That came even after a rebound Friday, when Trump’s decision to pick former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to replace Chair Jerome Powell eased some anxiety that the central bank will cave to the president’s demands for deep rate cuts.