Is the weak dollar, like steel tariffs, simply another political strategy out of Karl Rove’s playbook? Today’s New York Times reports that the shift to a weak dollar policy “may have begun under President Bush’s first Treasury secretary, Paul H. O’Neill, who placed less emphasis on keeping the dollar strong than on letting market forces rule. The shift became much more pronounced under Mr. O’Neill’s successor, Mr. Snow, who has tried to publicly press Chinese leaders into relaxing their policy. That shift reflected intense lobbying from American manufacturing companies, which have shed more than two million jobs over the last several years and have blamed much of their plight on efforts by China to deliberately undervalue its currency.
“ ‘The big story here is that John Snow finally listened to the key points we were making,’ said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.”
