WASHINGTON — The falling dollar is stoking fears of inflation and worries about America’s eroding economic power. But for now it just might be the tonic that’s needed to help the U. S. economy get back on its feet.

By making American products cheaper for most foreign buyers, the dollar is helping many U. S. companies boost overseas sales. The weakening dollar also gives domestic businesses a competitive edge at home, making their products cheaper than rival imports.

Its value slipped most of last week, hitting its lowest level in more than a year Thursday against other major currencies. It takes $1.49 to buy one euro, compared with $1.26 seven months ago. Many experts expect the dollar to keep falling in the coming months.

That decline has its downside, making such imported commodities as oil more expensive for U. S. businesses and consumers. The price of crude rose to $78.70 a barrel Friday, a one-year high related at least in part to the slumping dollar.

But to companies like Paulson Manufacturing Corp. in Temecula, Calif., which makes goggles and other protective gear, the dollar’s slide is good news.

For a customer in Brazil, the company’s top overseas market, buying $10,000 of Paulson’s face shields in early March meant shelling out more than 24,000 Brazilian reals. That same order costs about 17,000 reals now.

“It certainly helps to have the dollar go down,” said owner Roy Paulson, who’s considering expanding his staff of 135. “I’ll have more exports. There’s no doubt about it.”

The U. S. tourism industry, including hotels, restaurants and stores, also could see a bump in business from foreigners sleeping and eating and shopping at what may seem like bargain prices to them.

Tour operator RMP Travel in New York is getting more requests for quotes from overseas travelers.

“It looks like 2010 could be promising,” said Suzi Steiger, the company’s president.

About 40 percent of sales by companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index are made overseas. So when Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney and Abbott Laboratories convert money made in euros or Japanese yen into dollars, they will see more dollars on the bottom line.

The sinking dollar comes with some immediate downsides, of course. Although foreign travelers may be more inclined to visit, Americans heading to Paris, Sydney and other cities abroad may experience a bad case of sticker shock, something that could get worse.

The dollar has been weakening since 2002 in a trend that reversed temporarily last fall only when the escalating global financial crisis prompted frightened investors to move money into dollar-denominated assets such as Treasury bills for their perceived safety.

But since March, as the global recession has showed signs of easing, investors have been selling dollars or borrowing them to plow money into faster-growing places overseas, particularly Asia, and that’s driven the dollar’s value back down.

In public remarks, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has repeated the mantra that the U. S. favors a strong dollar. But he and others on President Obama’s economic team, which is struggling to quiet rising unemployment, may be quietly cheering the dollar’s decline.

“It’s a lucky break for the administration,” said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “In this environment where there’s low inflation,” he says, the weak dollar “is expansionary for the economy and will help create jobs.”

Treasury officials declined to comment. But last week, in addressing the National Association of Manufacturers’ board in Washington, Geithner conveyed a message that “his first thing was getting the economy stronger and that he’ll worry about the dollar later,” said Drew Greenblatt, a board member of the association and president of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore.

For Marlin, the lower dollar has been “like wind behind my sails,” Greenblatt said, projecting that exports will make up 25 percent of his business this year, about twice as much as in 2008. A few years ago, he says, he had no sales overseas.

The company made its first shipment last week to Australia: 50 six-pound wire baskets. Seven months ago the Australian customer would have had to pay almost 30 percent more.

“It’s as if we’re having a sale,” he said. “Foreign sales are saving my bacon.”

History suggests that the effects of the low dollar won’t take full shape for a year or more because of a lag in orders and shipments, said Frank Vargo, a spokesman for the manufacturing group. Even then, he added, any benefit will depend on customer demand, which remains weak here and abroad.

Some export-sensitive countries also can be expected to devalue their currencies to maintain their competitiveness in international markets. What is more, the dollar hasn’t weakened against every major currency, notably the Chinese yuan, which China does not allow to be freely traded in currency markets.