August 27, 2010
The Washington Post accomplished what might have seemed impossible: it had a major front page article on the trade deficit without once mentioning the over-valued dollar. The only vague reference comes near the end in a sentence that refers to “China’s currency and other policies.”
Those folks who took economics would remember that the main determinants of a country’s trade deficit are its GDP and the value of its currency. Other things equal, when a country’s economy expands, it buys more of everything, including more imports. This means that GDP could be a culprit in the trade deficit, but there would be few people who would claim that our GDP was too high in the years 2005 and 2006 as the trade deficit was hitting record shares of GDP.
This leaves the other culprit, an over-valued currency. The value of the dollar determines how expensive imports are relative to U.S. goods. If the dollar fell in value, we would buy fewer imports. This is a point which is widely accepted outside of the confines of the Washington Post. Of course, a lower dollar will also boost U.S. exports since it will make our exports cheaper to people living in other countries. For these reasons, a discussion of currency values would be featured front and center in a serious discussion of the trade deficit.
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