They finally did it. After decades of speculation and debate, the US Treasury late on Monday designated China a currency manipulator, topping up the tension in the trade wars.
Making the designation now is logically incomprehensible, has no or negative practical value and merely serves to underline the US’s inability to force China to do what it wants. Apart from that, it’s a great idea.
Even when China’s intervening against the renminbi was the number one concern of US international economic policy under George W Bush and Barack Obama — essentially the decade before 2013 — naming it a manipulator (under the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act 1988, if you’re taking notes) was never really on the cards.