In carry trades, traders look for a weak currency with low interest to use for transactions in other currencies. For example, Jacques, who has Euros, buys dollars and uses them as an intermediate currency for doing short-term transactions in pounds, because the low interest rate of the dollar means that he's not taking the interest hit for holding onto Euros, and can take advantage of higher interest rates in other currencies. Everyone wins except the Fed (and, by extension, the US economy).
It has to be a currency that other traders will accept, which is why you don't see carry trades happening in, say, Zimbabwe dollars, but basically the IMF has come right out and admitted that the dollar is now the weakest major currency in the world.
I should write up a post explaining this in more detail, but the Garrison Keillor version is that these days, the US is that guy who, when you ask to borrow twenty bucks, says "Oh, sure, pay me back whenever" and doesn't care about interest.
In particular, you may wish to look for articles about the yen carry trade, which started back in the '90s when Japan's interest rate was negative (in effect, they were paying people to do business in yen) and recently came to a close when Japan raised its interest rates again. You particularly want to look at the effects on Japan's economy when the yen carry trade ended.
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It has to be a currency that other traders will accept, which is why you don't see carry trades happening in, say, Zimbabwe dollars, but basically the IMF has come right out and admitted that the dollar is now the weakest major currency in the world.
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