. . . Seesawing trade policies , proposed foreign capital taxes and concerns over U.S. fiscal spending have propelled some investors to “Sell America” and given rise to a new trade: “Anywhere But the USA.” Market participants have been scrambling to keep up with flip-flopping White House tariffs policy, a dollar selloff , a sharp rise in U.S. Treasury yields and volatile Wall Street stocks . It comes after the TACO — or “Trump Always Chickens Out” — trade ruffled feathers last week, as investors bet that U.S. President Donald Trump will ease or postpone steep tariffs despite threats to the contrary. Now, market participants say the hot trade is “Anywhere But the USA” — or ABUSA — amid what investment manager Ninety One’s Alan Siow signaled was a “comfortable consensus” that U.S. exceptionalism was beginning to fade.

“The ‘Anywhere But USA’ trade isn’t contrarian — it’s a recalibration toward global balance, cyclical recovery, and multi-polar growth,” Siow, co-head of emerging market corporate debt, told CNBC. Over the past decade, he added, a widespread preference for U.S. assets had been “underpinned by secular strength in the [U.S. dollar] as a base currency.” But confidence in the greenback has wavered in recent weeks. The U.S. dollar index has shed more than 8% since the beginning of the year, with the dollar now on course for its fifth consecutive month of losses . “Against a backdrop of mounting fiscal imbalances, the recent spike in policy volatility and resulting geopolitical polarization have caused U.S. market dominance to lose some of its luster,” Siow explained. “At the same time, other global market destinations — [like emerging markets], Europe, Japan — offer improving fundamentals, attractive risk/reward profiles and are broadly under-owned.” He added that he was advising investors to consider whether index-beating returns are now more likely to come from global diversification than from continued U.S. concentration.

Rami Cassis, founder of London’s Parabellum Investments, told CNBC by phone that he was seeing a shift in attitude toward investing in the U.S. — but that this went deeper than simply seeking out the biggest returns. “I’m seeing a lot of, not quite animosity, but I can’t think of a better word for it,” he explained. “I think it’s quite specific to the current administration. I think the capital flows out of the U.S. are driven by the apparent unpredictability of the current administration, [but] I think it’s supported by ideology.” Tariffs, Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine war , perceptions around the administration’s stance on LGBT rights and other controversial policies were influencing some people’s decisions about putting money in America, Cassis told CNBC. “It’s become quite emotive,” he added. “Nobody wants to invest in an environment where the government might change its mind overnight. . . .