Annoyed by my applause for Matthew Slaughter’s essay in today’s Wall Street Journal, a self-described “Trump supporter” wrote today to instruct me on “how foreign trade works in the real world.” I replied:
Mr. Rob Sawyer
Dear Mr. Sawyer:
You think me to be “unrealistic” for “denying what Donald Trump” and many other politicians and pundits insist is “the ruination of our great country and economy by Chinese currency manipulators.”
I think you to be unrealistic for pronouncing on this matter with what you proudly describe as your “aversion to academic economics.” Here’s a link to a short essay that I wrote six years ago to explain why Americans have no reason to fear any foreign-government’s currency manipulation. Please write back – if you can endure writing again to an “academic with his head up his a__” – to inform me where the logic of my argument fails.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
