February 19, 2015
To paraphrase a line from an iconic American toy doll, “currency values are hard.” That is probably the best way to describe the Washington Post’s editorial against including rules on currency values in trade agreements.
The Post’s essential argument against including rules on currency values is that some measures whose main purpose is not to affect currency values may nonetheless affect currency values. Its example is the Fed’s quantitative easing (QE) policy, which by lowering interest rates also had the effect of lowering the value of the dollar. (It’s not clear why the Post singles out QE, since any Fed cut in interest rates would also lower the value of the dollar, other things equal.) The Post then argues that other countries could have contested QE policy as an unfair effort to lower the value of the dollar.
If the Post editorial board really believes this argument then it would be opposed to almost any possible trade agreement. Almost all trade agreements prohibit subsidies on exports. For example, the United States and other parties to trade deals are prohibiting from giving a 20 percent subsidy to steel exports so as to help their domestic steel industries. That’s about as basic as it gets.
But what about providing public education and training for the workers in the steel industry, is that a subsidy? How about having the government pick up the tab for the roads and ports used to export the steel? How about tax abatements and land condemnations for the construction of new steel factories? How about providing below-market interest loans through the Export-Import Bank? All of these are arguably forms of export subsidies and in fact raise far more difficult questions than quantitative easing.
If the Washington Post’s editors really can’t tell the difference between a policy whose primary purpose and effect is boosting aggregate demand in the United States by lowering interest rates and policy that directly lowers the value of the dollar by purchasing trillions of dollars of foreign currency, then surely they can’t tell the difference between education and infrastructure policy and export subsidies.
In short, the Washington Post editorial board apparently thinks our trade officials lack the competence to do trade policy. If they took their own logic seriously they would recommend just canning trade deals altogether; they are too complicated.
Addendum:
There is one point worth noting on this issue that the WaPo editorial doesn’t quite make. If the Obama administration cared about currency values there are measures it could take now. For example, it could push the Fed to actually buy up $1 trillion of currencies that are under-valued against the dollar. For currencies that are not freely traded it can try to put indirect pressure on their value by buying up futures or by offering to buy the currency directly from holders at a price above the pegged exchange rate. For example if the yuan is being targeted at a price of 16 cents, the Treasury could offer to pay 25 cents per yuan.
There is nothing that prevents the United States from going this route, although it would obviously be seen as a hostile step by our trading partners. Presumably the threat of going this route would lead to serious negotiations on currency values and end up with an agreement that resulted in a lower valued dollar.
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