RON DERBY: Global currency war puts emerging markets at risk
Higher tariffs are missiles in the battle because the US central bank has little ammunition left to weaken the dollar, which would boost growth by making exports cheaper
The dirty secret shared by the world’s leading governments is that they all want a cheap currency to provide a competitive edge when it comes to trade. No-one cares to openly admit it because of the race to the bottom it may inspire, which would ultimately leave everyone a loser. This has helped cement my belief that we are, and have been for some time, in the midst of an international currency war. It is now simply being masked as one based on trade between two of the world’s biggest economies, the US and China. The missiles in this war are higher tariffs, and that’s because in the case of the US — custodian of the world’s reserve currency — there’s little ammunition left in the hands of its central bank to weaken its currency. Weak currencies make a country’s exports cheaper, boosting a key source of growth. Impressive economic data in the US — where the country has been adding jobs every month for almost eight years, home prices have risen and a bull market that began in 2009 is...
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