A glance at the foreign-exchange markets suggests that the US dollar looks as powerful and dominant as ever.

However, taking a much longer-term view suggests that this impregnable position — and the economic heft that comes with it — will come under assault.

One consequence of the America First policies of US President Donald Trump will be to create a bipolar financial world, with China at one end and the US at the other. That will mean smaller financial flows between the two, and a much more robust effort from Beijing to eventually challenge the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. That, in turn, potentially has implications for everything from the status of US Treasury securities as the safest assets in the world to how oil is priced.