Despite ongoing policy uncertainty from U.S. President Trump, the U.S. dollar has maintained its dominant position in global trade. According to the latest data from the global financial messaging service SWIFT, the dollar's share in international transactions rose to 50.5% in December, up from 46.8% the previous month. This marks its highest share since 2023, when the Belgium-based organization revised its methodology for collecting transaction data.

Trailing the world's primary reserve currency was the euro, with a share of approximately 22%, followed by the British pound, Canadian dollar, Japanese yen, and the Chinese renminbi. Strategists at JPMorgan Chase, including Luis Oganes, noted in a report this week, "The U.S. dollar continues to dominate foreign exchange trading and international monetary usage. Concurrently, central banks are persistently increasing their gold reserves, with gold accounting for a growing proportion of reserve assets maturing in 2025."

Major global banks utilize SWIFT to communicate with each other and facilitate interbank currency transactions. According to SWIFT's latest annual report released last year, approximately 13.4 billion payment instructions were sent via SWIFT in 2024, an increase from 11.9 billion the year before.

It is important to note that SWIFT's data does not encompass the entire foreign exchange market, which sees a daily trading volume of up to $9.5 trillion. For instance, following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, SWIFT began excluding several major Russian banks from its services.

Nevertheless, this data provides strong evidence that, despite the market volatility and policy confusion triggered during Trump's first year in office, the dollar's status in international finance and trade remains robust. The last time the dollar's share of global payments exceeded 50% was in January 2025.

Meanwhile, the dollar index has declined by more than 7% over the past year. Independent data from the Bank for International Settlements shows that as of April 2025, 89% of foreign exchange transactions involved the dollar on at least one side, while the Federal Reserve estimates that approximately 60% of international debt is denominated in U.S. dollars.

SWIFT's transaction data indicates that the volume of dollar transactions experiences monthly fluctuations due to seasonal factors and short-term volatility in payment activity. The growth in dollar transaction volume in December was primarily driven by a decrease in euro-denominated payments, whose share fell to 21.9%, the lowest level in a year.

In December, approximately 2.7% of SWIFT transactions involved the Chinese renminbi, a figure below the average seen over the past year.