Must-Read: Financial Times: Donald Trump Beats a Retreat

Must-Read: Financial Times: Donald Trump Beats a Retreat https://www.ft.com/content/039d80ae-21cb-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16: “Another week, another series of flip-flops by America’s president…

…Along with reversing course on Nato, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and the US Export-Import Bank, all of which he is much keener on now than he was a week earlier, Donald Trump did not, after all, designate China a currency manipulator… [even though he] swore he would name China as a manipulator on his first day in office….

Mr Trump’s other assertion—that the recent unwelcome strength of the dollar was due to the market’s confidence in him—is also somewhat suspect…. The dollar now appears to be following the prospects of tighter monetary policy in the US relative to other countries…. He would be badly advised to imagine he can efficiently manage the currency through jawboning…. And while it is welcome Mr Trump is now open to reappointing Ms Yellen as Fed chair, it should not be in the context of interfering with central bank independence. It would be as wrong to press her to keep interest rates low as a matter of principle, which appears to be his current stance, as it was to attack Ms Yellen during the election campaign for not raising them sooner.

It is always pleasing when Mr Trump manages to hit upon a sensible policy and listens to the voices…. Rather more concerning is the caprice with which such changes seem to happen…