An economist sounded the alarm on the Trump administration’s “desperate attempt” to avoid “blaring warnings” from financial markets.
In a Thursday opinion column published by The New York Times, economist Eswar Prasad explained why President Donald Trump and the U.S. Treasury were interested in buying billions of dollars’ worth of Japanese yen and intervening in the country’s currency policy.
“But they are tied together by one big problem: unsustainably high levels of government debt,” Prasad wrote. “Currency market intervention is a desperate attempt by Tokyo and Washington to evade the blaring warnings from financial markets.”
Prasad noted, “It’s rare for the United States to intervene in another country’s currency policy,” and “it usually happens because there is a crisis.”
However, the Trump administration has been propping up the currencies in allied countries to reward friends and push its agenda.
“It seems risky and expensive to buy another country’s currency or even offer to temporarily swap dollars for that currency, especially one whose value is falling,” Prasad wrote. “The administration has U.S. economic interests in mind but is also keen to propagate its policies and reward its allies.”
Prasad pointed out that the Trump administration “propped up the Argentine peso” in October and discussed similarly intervening in the United Arab Emirates.
“None of those countries had reached the level of emergency usually required,” he wrote. “None of these actions were born of benevolence.”
According to Prasad, the Trump Treasury is also interested in buying yen to stop it from falling because a weak yen means pricier imports and higher debt costs for Japan, but it also erases Trump’s tariffs. However, the U.S. can’t outrun its debt, and “with no sign of any discipline on fiscal matters, it will probably result in Washington digging itself into an even deeper debt hole,” Prasad wrote.
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