The FX market may have a reason to pay even more attention to the US election this November.
Late yesterday, there was a Politico report saying Trump’s former trade adviser Robert Lighthizer and several policy allies would seek to make American trade more competitive by purposely weakening the dollar.
Yesterday, Trump also posted this on his social media platform.
The Dollar has just hit a 34 year high against the Yen, a total disaster for the United States. When I was President, I spent a good deal of time telling Japan and China, in particular, you can’t do that. It sounds good to stupid people, but it is a disaster for our manufacturers and others. They are actually unable to compete and will be forced to either lose lots of business, or build plants, or whatever, in the “smart” Countries. This is what made Japan and China into behemoths years ago. I put limits on both (and others!), and if they violated those limits, there was hell to pay. Biden has let it go. Watch them now pick apart the U.S. It will be an open field day. Don’t let this happen Crooked Joe. Wake up and smell the roses!
It’s not clear how a Trump administration would try to weaken the dollar. He seems to think that Japan is trying to weaken their currency when they’re trying to strengthen it.