Germany and Italy suspected for “currency manipulation”!
In May 2019 the Treasury published its currency manipulation report. The Treasury puts Germany and Italy on its “monitoring list” of countries suspected of “currency manipulation.”
And thus we get to the madness that a country without its own currency can be accused of its manipulation.
In addition, the Treasury will assess all U.S. trading partners whose bilateral goods trade with the United States exceeds $40 billion annually!
If all this sounds absurd, it is! This Cochrane article is quite humorous.
Institutionalized nonsense
By: John Cochrane – Stanford University
Currency manipulation in 2018 fell to its lowest level since 2001
Collins and Gagnon use the criteria for manipulation developed by Bergsten and Gagnon to identify the countries acting to weaken the value of their currency in order to affect their trade balance. They find that in 2018:
- China did not manipulating;
- Norway did manipulate as its foreign asset purchases exceeded 65 percent of oil exports minus production cost;
- Switzerland and Singapore did manipulate.
Currency Manipulation Continues to Decline
By: Christopher G. Collins, Joseph E. Gagnon – Peterson Institute for International Economics
