May 12, 2015
That is what readers of the NYT must be wondering. According to the NYT, the White House strongly objected to a bill that would be attached to fast-track authority which would require the government to impose tariffs to offset the effect of currency management by other countries. (If a country deliberately reduces the value of their currency against the dollar by 10 percent, it has the same impact as imposing a tariff of the same size and providing a 10 percent subsidy on its exports.)
The article notes that Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker called it “a terrible idea,” and then tells readers:
“Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said any measure to counter a foreign power’s currency policies could backfire, undermining the Federal Reserve Board, which uses the flow of currency to tighten or loosen economic growth in the United States.”
This assertion is bizarre because the Fed never intervenes in the currency market to tighten or loosen economic growth in the United States. Its standard tools involve raising or lowering the overnight interest rate and more recently trying to reduce long-term interest rates directly by buying up large amounts of government bonds or mortgage backed securities. These policy tools would not be affected by rules that limited central bank interventions in currency markets.
Comments