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A conflict over exchange rates is brewing. The burden of adjustment the United States needs to close its trade deficit has fallen mostly upon the euro-dollar exchange rate, to the tune of 30 percent versus eighteen months ago. Meanwhile, the yen-dollar exchange rate has moved only 17 percent in the same period, largely because the yuan-dollar rate has not moved at all. The weak and, in part, export-driven recovery in Europe makes the eurozone governments antsy about further rises in the euro against the dollar. And U.S. presidential candidates are formulating legal challenges to those countries that are seen as blocking the orderly decline of the dollar. Governments and interest groups do not like feeling as if they are being taken advantage of by foreign economic policies.
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