[bruinbirdman]

"A large portion of the decline in due to a trade deficit."

From the article:

". . . anyone who believes that the falling dollar reflects America’s huge trade deficit and foreign borrowing should consider that the one leading currency even weaker in the past three years than the dollar has been the yen; yet Japan has the world’s biggest trade surplus and is the greatest creditor nation the world has ever seen."

yitbos

[ndt]

"the one leading currency even weaker in the past three years than the dollar has been the yen"

Japan actively works to keep the yen at lows so to prop up their export market. That's not an accident, that's by design.