Ringgit strengthens as US tariff plans stir global repricing

The ringgit’s early-week strengthening against the US dollar may look modest at first glance—but its underlying message is far from benign. The US administration’s announcement of punitive tariffs on the European Union, Canada, and Mexico has injected fresh volatility into global trade assumptions, and currency markets are pricing in the implications accordingly. What we are witnessing is not simply short-term FX noise, but a reflection of systemic risk being reassessed.

Malaysia’s ringgit opened stronger at 4.2405 to the dollar on Monday, moving off last week’s close of 4.2475. The gains continued across most G10 and ASEAN currencies, excluding the baht. This resilience is partly technical. But the broader signal points to a growing divergence in how markets are absorbing Washington’s tariff policy as a tool of economic coercion rather than standard protectionism.

This isn’t an isolated policy event. It marks a continuation of Washington’s willingness to weaponize trade instruments in pursuit of economic leverage—a strategy with cascading effects on capital positioning, reserve management, and inflationary pressure across emerging markets.

The proposed tariffs—30% on EU and Mexico, 35% on Canada—are not symbolic. They will force affected economies to reconsider bilateral alignments and recalibrate trade flows. But the broader implication lies in the volatility premium now baked into USD-based trade relationships. For Malaysia, which already operates in a region defined by US-China bifurcation, this adds a new layer of external fragility.

FX desks are not blind to this shift. The ringgit’s firming is not a vote of confidence in Malaysia’s fundamentals, but rather a recalibration against a weakening dollar backdrop. With the Federal Reserve caught in a policy bind—struggling between sticky inflation and fragile growth—yield and safety dynamics are less stable than they appear. The result: tactical capital shifts into higher-yielding or less politically exposed currencies.

Bank Muamalat's commentary highlights this dynamic clearly. As Dr. Mohd Afzanizam noted, the US has “weaponised” tariffs—a move that increases both downside risks to global growth and complicates the Fed’s interest rate path. That complexity is what investors are now pricing.

Historically, the ringgit has been highly sensitive to exogenous shocks. In past cycles—1997, 2008, and even the 2015 oil collapse—it reacted more to shifts in global risk appetite than to domestic policy levers. What is different now is the synchrony of multiple macro pressures: fiscal rebalancing, tariff rearmament, and Fed hesitation. These create an unstable base from which even mild FX moves can become amplified.

Malaysia’s currency stability is underpinned not just by external demand or commodity flows, but by the credibility of its macro-financial system. That system now faces a rising cost of predictability. Tariff disruptions can quickly filter through supply chains, impacting trade surplus assumptions and creating secondary inflation in logistics, raw materials, and final goods. Central banks across Asia will be forced to navigate a narrowed policy corridor—tighten too much, and domestic demand cracks; ease too much, and FX buffers erode.

In this context, even a 0.07-point movement in the USD/MYR pair deserves attention. It’s not the quantum that matters—it’s the direction and the reasoning behind it. Likewise, the ringgit’s appreciation against the yen, euro, and pound reflects a regional FX repricing triggered by Washington’s brinkmanship, not an autonomous strengthening of Southeast Asian currencies.

Institutional allocators—particularly sovereign wealth funds and regional reserve managers—are not reacting emotionally. They are repositioning based on risk-to-signal divergence. If tariffs are now used as a preemptive economic weapon, hedging against US-centric volatility becomes a structural consideration, not a tactical one. This may reinforce a mild diversification away from USD-linked assets or prompt more active currency overlays.

Crucially, the ringgit’s move against the Singapore dollar—traditionally a proxy for regional policy convergence—also signals how markets interpret relative resilience. While Singapore’s inflation discipline and fiscal surplus posture remain credible, Malaysia’s ringgit finds room to rise, not on its own merit, but through repricing of global political risk.

The strengthening ringgit isn’t evidence of domestic revival. It is a capital market’s warning. The US tariff doctrine is injecting uncertainty into trade norms, reserve assumptions, and monetary forward guidance. For policymakers in the region, this may prompt pre-emptive FX interventions or realignment of rate expectations. For sovereign allocators, it sharpens the case for diversified currency exposure and more agile liquidity frameworks.

What appears to be a currency bounce is better understood as a rebalancing against politicized risk—and a preview of further volatility if tariff rhetoric turns into sustained economic fragmentation.

Beyond currency markets, this also signals the erosion of predictability in transatlantic and intra-American trade flows. When trade pacts become hostage to electoral tactics, pricing models for exporters, hedging assumptions for corporates, and sovereign cashflow projections all become more brittle. For regional economies like Malaysia, the next phase of response may involve not just defensive reserve posture, but active participation in non-aligned trade corridors. In short, currency moves are not standalone. They are now early warning systems for systemic divergence in global capital and trade logic.