Trumponomics is Clintonomics in the Mirror

Directionally opposite, but with the same disastrous outcome.

Photo by Sonder Quest on Unsplash

Let’s start with Triffin’s Dilemma:

In international finance, the Triffin dilemma (sometimes the Triffin paradox) is the conflict of economic interests that arises between short-term domestic and long-term international objectives for countries whose currencies serve as global reserve currencies. This dilemma was identified in the 1960s by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin. He noted that a country whose currency is the global reserve currency, held by other nations as foreign exchange (FX) reserves to support international trade, must somehow supply the world with its currency in order to fulfill world demand for these FX reserves. This supply function is nominally accomplished by international trade, with the country holding reserve currency status being required to run an inevitable trade deficit. ][Wikipedia.]

Robert Frost put it more poetically. “Home,” he wrote, “is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” If a country has the privilege of paying for imports with its own currency, and especially if it wants the world to trade in its currency, it must provide a place where that money can go when our trading partners want to spend or invest it. The best such place is Treasury securities…