Who the Heck Cares About Currency? Exploring the Path to Stronger and More Sustainable Trade Relationships

Outcome of the second ASU/Kearny Alliance forum, " The Currency of Trade: Formulating stronger and more sustainable U.S.-China trade relations” held in Beijing, China October 22-23, 2009.

Who the Heck Cares About Currency?

Exploring the path to stronger and more sustainable trade relationships

Should.  It’s such a loaded word.  Americans should save more.  Chinese should consume more.  The U.S. should stop deficit spending.  China should appreciate the renminbi.  Exhortations of that sort are at best unproductive and, more often, detrimental.  So the white paper that follows explores not what the U.S. or China should do with regard to currency and trade, but first the realities that both countries face, and second what policymakers can do to maximize the mutual benefits and minimize the costs of economic integration. 

A number of assumptions – many of them explored in detail in this white paper’s predecessor, Who the Heck Cares About Trade? – underlie the discussion that follows:

• Economic integration will continue, as it has for thousands of years, and will benefit, on net and over the long term, everyone involved – as it has proven to. 
• When the U.S. and China cooperate – on the environment, on human rights, on currency, on trade – everyone wins. 
• Cooperation is possible.  Economic integration is not a zero-sum game – it can benefit us all.

We can all win.

Given the realities of currency and trade, what are actions that the U.S. and China can take to maximize the mutual benefits and minimize the costs of integration?  Trade policymakers in the U.S. in China no doubt lose sleep over that question.  If policymakers in China and the U.S. avoid exhortations about what the other should or should not do, they will see that there is enormous room to cooperate, compromise, work toward a mutually-beneficial solution.  Trade need not be a zero-sum game.  That’s the beauty of it: we can all win.

Read more – download the full white paper:

• Who the Heck Cares About Currency? (English)
• 誰在乎的埃克貨 幣？ （中文版)