Before writing about the dollar, I should declare an interest. Being paid in euros, I would like to see the US dollar fall from its current high. I can remember in the early 1990s when an Irish pound was worth one dollar and 60 cents and America was a great place to visit on a tight budget. Today the pound is hovering around one dollar and six cents and living here is expensive for Europeans.

But I am not alone in wishing the dollar down. On Wednesday last week John Dillon, head of the American Business Roundtable, representing 150 of the biggest US exporters, met US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to plead for a lower greenback.

The manufacturing sector is in deep recession, and the strong dollar policy is making it too difficult for American companies to export abroad or to compete with imports, complained Mr Dillon, who is head of International Paper.

"Foreign companies are taking an increasing share of the US market because of the dollar's relationship with other currencies," he said.

Other business groups are also banging on the White House door, like the 14,000 member National Association of Manufacturers whose members have horror stories of being priced out of foreign markets and having to lay off American workers.

There is a precedent for the administration lowering the value of the dollar at the behest of distressed US chief executives. On September 22nd, 1985, US Treasury Secretary James Baker convened a meeting with the finance ministers of the UK, France, West Germany and Japan in New York's Plaza Hotel. He told them that the US dollar was too strong and had to come down in value to protect American industries.

The group produced what became known as the "Plaza Accord", a co-operative plan for the "orderly appreciation of non-dollar currencies". Within a month the dollar fell 13 per cent and a year later foreign currencies had risen by 24-28 per cent against the dollar.

Since the mid-1990s, however, the US has followed a strong dollar policy to keep inflation in check and foreign investment flowing into the US. The greenback's long ascent was stimulated by the flight from Asian markets in 1997 and by sustained economic growth which encouraged European portfolio investors to buy a record amount of US stocks and bonds, continuing into this year despite the volatility of US markets.

There is more bang than ever in the buck, marvelled Barron's weekly as the dollar surged this month to a 15-year high against the euro, sterling and other world currencies. When launched on January 1st, 1999, the euro opened at $1.18 (one could say those were the days, except it hardly lasted a day) and has fallen 27 per cent against the dollar since then, testing its lows of 85 cents in the last two weeks.

The American dollar has also consolidated its position more than ever as the world's almighty reserve currency. It is on one side of money trading worldwide 97 per cent of the time, mainly as an intermediary currency. It is the legal tender of countries like Panama and East Timor. It is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar and the Chinese yuan. It is demanded of foreigners paying rents in Beijing or hotel bills in Jakarta. It is the currency of choice of the Russian mafia.

Mr O'Neill has consistently upheld the strong dollar as the cornerstone of US economic policy, despite some early wavering which rattled currency markets in February. The Treasury insists it favours a free market and that there is no prospect of "Plaza Accord Two". Officials point out that the dollar is still a third cheaper than when George Baker called the Plaza Hotel meeting 16 years ago.

With world economies deteriorating, EU growth stalling and sterling taking a dive on rumours that it will join the euro, financial analysts here predict that the dollar will not sink anytime soon. However, some sympathy must be felt for corporate America by a business-friendly White House and a Treasury Secretary who as former head of Alcoa Aluminum knows the value of foreign markets.

The markets may eventually do the trick, if the US staggers into recession or there is another financial crisis on Wall Street like that collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998, the last time the dollar wobbled badly. After January 1st next year the psychological impact of having a real rather than a virtual currency in Europe might also strengthen the euro. But beware, that might just be wishful thinking on my part.