AMERICANMADE
Trump’s emergency dollar reset
The downward slide has begun.
According to new research from Bloomberg, the U.S. dollar's share of global reserves has just fallen to the lowest level this century.
While everyone is distracted by hyped-up IPOs and the AI bubble, the world is walking away from the dollar – the foundation on which all of our lives are built is crumbling.
And I believe the consequences for the country – and your financial security – are extremely serious.
President Trump knows it. That's why he has taken emergency action by signing executive order 14241 to initiate the first full reset of the American dollar in half a century.
That means every dollar you have saved and invested… every good, every service, every asset… all of it could be about to be repriced against a new monetary anchor.
It’s not gold, or crypto – but something far more unexpected. An asset so fiercely contested and so critical that Vladimir Putin once claimed whoever controls it “will become the leader of the world”
Nobody can tell you exactly how this reset will play out.
But I do know that the last time America changed its money like this – half a century ago – it split the country in two. Between the folks who understood what was happening and responded accordingly – and those who got brutally left behind.
That line is being drawn again. And what you do with your money in the months ahead could decide which side you end up on.
I’d like to show you which investments could thrive – and which could be the most dangerous – inside Trump’s new monetary order.
In 1952, a welder named George Stephen worked at Weber Brothers Metal Works in Chicago — a shop that made harbor buoys. He liked to grill, but the flat, open braziers of the day let ash blow onto the food and wind kill the fire. So he took a spherical buoy, cut it in half, put a grate inside, added three legs and a domed lid with a handle.
His coworkers laughed at “George’s Barbecue Kettle.” Then it cooked circles around everything else. The dome trapped heat. The vents controlled the fire. The shape became an icon. Seventy-four years later, Weber still makes it in Huntley, Illinois — about 40 miles from where Stephen cut that first buoy.
The Original Kettle Premium 22-inch costs about $220. Here’s where that money goes.
Materials take the biggest share at 27%. The bowl and lid are formed from heavy-gauge steel, then coated in porcelain enamel fired at over 1,500 degrees. That enamel is why a Weber can sit outside for 20 years without rusting through. The One-Touch cleaning system, aluminum ash catcher, and glass-reinforced nylon handle round out the parts.
Labor and assembly take 18%. In Huntley, steel is stamped and formed into hemispheres, enameled, and assembled into finished grills. The plant runs at high volume — roughly 15,000 products a day — which keeps per-unit labor cost low even at American wages. Scale is what makes domestic production work here.
Note the honest label. Weber says its grills are “made in the USA with U.S. and globally sourced components.” Some steel, fasteners, and plastics come from abroad. The forming, enameling, and assembly happen in Illinois. That’s the FTC-compliant truth — and more honest than most brands bother to be.
Not every Weber is made in America. The Original Kettle, Summit, and Q series are built in Illinois. The entry-level Spirit series and some Genesis II variants are made in China. A cheaper Weber at the big-box store may not be a domestic Weber. The model name and the label tell you which is which.
Compare that to Traeger, the pellet-grill brand that moved production to China and Vietnam after its 2006 sale. Weber kept its charcoal and premium lines in Illinois. When you buy an Original Kettle, you’re buying one of the last iconic American products still made where it was invented.
You can’t buy Weber stock today. It went public in August 2021 under the ticker WEBR. It struggled as pandemic grill demand faded, and was taken private again in February 2023 when BDT Capital Partners paid $3.7 billion. It’s the same pattern we saw with Louisville Slugger and Zippo. An iconic American brand often runs better away from the pressure of quarterly earnings.
The lesson is about scale and honesty. Weber proves domestic manufacturing can work at volume. Fifteen thousand units a day at competitive prices — when the product commands a premium and the brand is strong enough to support it. But it also shows the limits. The cheapest Webers moved to China because American production couldn’t hit the entry-level price point. The company kept the icon at home and sent the commodity abroad.
That’s the honest state of American manufacturing in one product line. The premium, iconic, design-driven goods can still be made here. The cheap, commodity versions usually can’t. When you pay $220 for an Original Kettle instead of $120 for a Spirit, part of what you’re buying is domestic. A grill still made in the Illinois town where a welder cut a buoy in half 74 years ago. Fire it up this weekend.