The slippery slope of protectionism

It didn’t take long for Timothy Geithner, the new US Treasury secretary, to make his presence felt. Before his appointment had even been confirmed, Geithner rolled out the ‘M’ word, effectively accusing China of manipulating the yuan.

He also came out with the old one that a strong dollar is in US interests, which could be taken as a tacit admission that the latest experiment to solve trade imbalances with its own version of currency manipulation has failed. As I’ve written before, the US makes very little that other countries wish to buy, so surely its best policy is to make its imports cheaper?

Commerzbank analyst Lutz Karpowitz has come up with a more sensible appraisal of the dangers of accusing China of currency manipulation.

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