Trump’s Annoyed About Russian and Chinese Currencies. Should He Be?

The freshly printed paper “Sovereign Issued” US Treasury bonds and other US securities denominated in US dollars that the US government periodically prints on paper and then sells at public auction to (Communist Chinese and other wealth creating industrialist individuals in the taxable wealth creating BRIC nations in return for foreigner's US Dollars they got by manufacturing and selling their products to US citizens) raise funds to pay for various taxable wealth consuming US government activities actually have absolutely NO VALUE at all. These financial instruments are however easily and quickly redeemed by foreigners for (when they purchase) title to privately owned businesses, movie houses, factories, casinos, hotels, farms, land, ports, refineries, forests, ports, breweries, distilleries, and other privately owned national wealth and other assets located in the USA that do have value and were created by previous productive US generations prior to the USA de-industrialization (instead of Gold from Ft. Knox or the NYC federal reserve bank). After the USA has sold all of the privately owned national wealth and other assets located in the USA to mortgage and/or redeem our US currency and our freshly printed paper “Sovereign Issued” US Treasury Bonds, foreigners will then stop buying any of our freshly printed paper US Treasury Bonds, and then the value of the US Dollar will approach the value of monopoly money, toilet paper and/or Bitcoins.

Russia is really weird about their ruble. There have been times when tourists were charged 20-40 rubles for enough toilet paper to go to the bathroom when the exchange rate with the U.S. Dollar was 1 to 1 with the ruble.

Since when did little things like facts make a difference to Mr. Trump? We can't expect better from him; he's made that abundantly clear. It's all bluster. Tomorrow he'll be off on some other nonsense.

China’s monetary strategy is quite clear: export, and invest the foreign currencies gained from exporting to avoid the currency appreciating. We are buying their toys, cheap electronics and sweatshop clothes, they are buying our debt and real estate. Flows are balanced, therefore currencies don’t move despite the trade deficit (and despite what economic science seemed to predict). Obviously the more it goes, and the more the deficit is aggravated by the income from the investments. Bonus point: the housing crisis makes many countries’ industry uncompetitive, as a Chinese worker would work for less than your rent. I am quite convinced that behind closed doors, this is one of the key arguments for keeping interest rates low (the case for low rates actually helping the economy is quite weak): if China (and Saudi Arabia, and Qatar…) are buying all our assets, at least let’s make these assets expensive and make sure these countries don’t get too much bang for their buck. Voters just don’t care: if my 401K and my property are appreciating, why should I care about anything else?

Trump is an economic dunce.

US is the one manipulating currency by printing and flooding the market worldwide with tonnes of fiat currency during the big financial crisis of 2007. Other countries, facing the same crisis, would have been advised and forced by US to seek help from US-controlled IMF.

All of Trump's strange pronouncements make it clear to me that the power of the President, one person, needs to be contained by some advisory body. "One person to declare war, one person to start trade wars, and in the darkness of his thoughts bind them." At least that's what it says on this ring I got out of my box of Cracker Jacks!

Two years ago, Trump would have been blaming Obama’s inaction and incompetence for allowing Chinese and Russian currency manipulation. Why has he stopped blaming US governmental inaction and incompetence for the problem?

Trump's subconscious betrays him again. You're interested in Russian currency valuations only if they affect you, and that is true only if you own Russian assets. So why does Trump care ... unless he owns Russian property, or owns debt from Russian debtors who may have difficulties paying off the debt because of the devaluation. But since he has already (and most convincingly) claimed he has no Russian investments or any dealings with Russians, what's the problem?

China buys US Treasury debt in order to keep the dollar up and Yuan down. Rather than buying American products, they park their dollars with the US Treasury. Isn't that currency manipulation? but how can the US government complain? with a huge deficit that needs financing.

Time and again Donald Trump's unharnessed campaign-style rhetoric and stream of semi-consciousness tweeting about international trade flows, tariffs, currency fluctuations, and the like, prove that he has little or no knowledge of the subject. Not only does he lack theoretical understanding, he cannot even get the basic facts straight. The same can be said about his ignorance of macroeconomics, and his general indifference to how monetary and fiscal policy impact real lives. All he really wanted in the Ryan tax cut was a "win" for himself, and a windfall for his billionaire backers. The bill's substance, and its short and long term consequences, mattered hardly a bit. The same applies to his sledge-hammer approach to tariffs. So where does Donald Trump's "businessman's expertise" lie? A series of bankruptcies along with a record of underhanded cheating of business partners, creditors, and contractors provide the answer. If this is what his "base" has been led to accept as evidence of "business expertise," it's pretty unattractive. Each Trump business episode would make for a riveting chapter in "The Thin Book of Business Ethics." Give me an experienced politician, even a shady one, any day over this. Two years of undergraduate real estate wheeling and dealing courses at Wharton. That's it. Plus a mogul real estate father with a similar record of ethical shortcuts. That's Trump's sum total economics background.

Trump is a child. He stopped thinking in extended logical sequences years ago. As far as I can tell, his starting point for considering any issue is that his convictions are always right, and that he is a genius. He will cherry pick his way through facts to fit a passing whim or hastily reached conclusion. But you can be sure that Trump will always conclude that Trump is right, regardless of the facts. Trying to unpack his tweets or find consistent policy assumptions and conclusions is like trying to chart the future by consulting a Magic Eight Ball. The best you can hope for over the next two years is that Trump's aides and career government officials can slowly convince him on occasion to trust the experts and stop lunging to the wrong conclusions. God help us.

It is Trump’s lies and general ratbaggery that are “not acceptable”. In fact, the US dollar is the world's most dominant reserve currency by far, and as a result, the world's need for dollars has allowed the United States government as well as Americans to borrow at lower costs, granting them an advantage in excess of $100 billion per year, each year, every year, as well as considerable economic power over other nations. But Trump’s supporters don’t want facts. They want nativist nostrums, especially ones calculated to raise their hackles against some imagined evil ‘other’ or foreign country.

Just another squawk from the idling goose on the swamp, no more important than its noises before or to come. Sometimes threatening, flapping and lowering its head to hiss, but this passes quickly. Mostly, it honks simply to make sure others know its there.

a trump tantrum in a teacup, full of sound and fury and signifying naught.

Wisdom, integrity, insight and coherence are not attributes of the man we have elected as POTUS. To search for meaning in his utterances is like chasing squirrels through the trees. We need to focus on the forest ... and the forest is burning.

The statements by the President are almost irrelevant in the context that A) every thing he say about Russia seems like a smokescreen B) He and his family do business ( who knows how many backroom deals there are ) with China, so how much of a smokescreen is that as well. Russia is gas station masquerading as a state, whereas most of the wealth has or is being siphoned off by a cabal within a kleptocracy surrounding Putin. They have zero effect on currency, unless they are moving large amounts of currency from bank to bank trying to hide it. China, however is smart. ( at least those within the bureaucracy at the top of their totalitarian state ) They do manipulate currency greatly on the whims of politically shifting winds. It does not show up so much in the yuan, but in the massive subsidization of whatever sector of the global economy they wish to dominate going into the future. ( think solar panels ) An article detailing as much can become moot by next week once no one is looking again.

The statements by the President are almost irrelevant in the context that A) every thing he say about Russia seems like a smokescreen B) He and his family do business ( who knows how many backroom deals there are ) with China, so how much of a smokescreen is that as well. Russia is gas station masquerading as a state, whereas most of the wealth has or is being siphoned off by a cabal within a kleptocracy surrounding Putin. They have zero effect on currency, unless they are moving large amounts of currency from bank to bank trying to hide it. China, however is smart. ( at least those within the bureaucracy at the top of their totalitarian state ) They do manipulate currency greatly on the whims of politically shifting winds. It does not show up so much in the yuan, but in the massive subsidization of whatever sector of the global economy they wish to dominate going into the future. ( think solar panels ) An article detailing as much can become moot by next week once no one is looking again.

Our trade imbalance only can be corrected by a committed policy of trade balance that is applied domestically. Whining about what others do with currencies will solve nothing. We need to grant our exporters $trade credits that importers of foreign goods and services must buy on a regulated exchange before releasing import payment dollars. Our foreign trade would be in balance. What others do from that point on would not upset our balance of trade. If others then "retaliate" by following suit, fine!

The question that needs to be asked is why is the US$ so strong? If China can manipulate its currency, so can US manipulate its. So the question is, why didn't Obama administration manipulate its value down? Who benefited from strong $ policy? Lets keep in mind that there is no such a thing as a free market, everything is manipulated. The only question is, for whose benefit? In US political system, the winners are always the political donors. At the same time, why haven't US interest rates gone up? Obviously because the FED works for the banks, not American people. The policies are government is pursuing are benefiting the wealthy to the detriment of the middle class. The damage that has been inflicted on the middle class has been severe. But our governments could care less about it, they only take care of the donors. So lets stop complaining about China is manipulating its currency, if there had been a will to solve the problem it would have been solved long ago.

Although Trump boasts of his degree from Wharton (a BA in business) and his financial acumen (a man who drove casinos to bankruptcy!), he knows nothing about economics, finance (other than going into debt), or monetary policy. Too much hairspray has caused a toxic encephalopathy.

Trump is in way over his head on trade and and currency issues, ignoring the advice of the actual experts like his own Treasury Dept. What do they know? He demands that China open its market to US vehicles by eliminating the 25% Chinese tariff on imports, which they have already announced they are reducing. But he seems ignorant of a 25% US tariff on the huge light truck market imposed during the Johnson Administration, also known as the "Chicken Tax", that still survives today for purely protectionist reasons. Not even Trump would be foolish enough to trade away the US light duty market of millions of trucks to sell a few thousand novelty trucks in China to billionaires. His currency views are no better informed.

You are missing the point. These are dog whistles to his supporters, reinforcing their prejudices and reconfirming that they and he think alike, while also distracting from the Trump disaster of the day. It's got nothing to do with logical discourse aimed at crafting economic policy.

I think the bigger problem is the loss of blue collar rust belt jobs to slave labor countries like India, Mexico, Vietnam etc. and to a lesser degree China. We cannot compete with slave labor.

If we accuse China for manipulating their currency or "allowed the currency to appreciate only gradually", could they accuse us changing the interest rates too fast, too slow. or too erratic? We know they are financing part of our government debt.

The Treasury department report is tangential to this article. As the headline reminds us, the issue is Trump's opinion and information source. So: what DID Fox say on the subject of Chinese and Russian currency?

There may be a muddle here between devaluation and depreciation.

Trump's solutions to problems are just knee jerk reactions when he is in a snit over something entirely different.