China and the renminbi dominate US foreign exchange concerns
Unexciting Treasury report should focus more on dollar strength
The US Treasury released its latest foreign exchange report last week. It has not garnered much excitement. Dollar strength poses a bigger foreign exchange question for the current international economic juncture than other currencies, but the report does not devote enough discussion to this. Further, the external positions of key surplus countries raise more nettlesome structural bugs than foreign exchange developments.
Nonetheless, several salient themes are well explored, while other parts miss their mark. What are the hits and misses?
The hits
The first hit is the Treasury’s discussion of the Chinese economy and external position. The report documents China’s efforts to resist renminbi depreciation a...

