The US Justice Department’s surprising decision to serve subpoenas on the Federal Reserve, following a public dispute between the Trump administration and the central bank over monetary policy, forced markets to confront a risk they have only recently had to price directly: the politicisation of America’s core institutional guardrails.

And once that risk finally moved from abstraction to action, the “Sell America” trade stopped sounding rhetorical and started behaving like a strategy all over again.

The response was immediate. The dollar weakened. Long-dated Treasury yields rose as the curve steepened. Equity futures fell. Gold, silver and other hard assets surged to fresh records. Volatility rose across asset classes. So, was this routine reaction to new news, or was it more substantial, like a repricing of US institutional risk?

Why did this moment matter so much? Because it compelled investors to reassess an assumption that has underpinned global finance for decades: that America’s internal institutions operate above politics, even when politics turns rough. The Federal Reserve has always been criticised, pressured and second-guessed. But it hasn’t faced a credible legal escalation tied to policy disagreement. Until now.

READ MORE: Dollar drops as US Justice Department subpoenas Fed’s Powell

That distinction is not semantic. It goes to the heart of how US assets are valued.

For years, American markets enjoyed a credibility premium. Investors did not just buy US growth or liquidity.........

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