Guard against neo-mercantilism

If the IMF cannot be persuaded to enforce the 'scarce' currency clause on China and Germany, unilateral trade actions by the US would be justified

During the past two decades, China and Germany have followed neo-mercantilist policies through “exchange rate protection”. This involves maintaining an undervalued real exchange rate to generate a trade surplus, by indirectly subsidising exports and taxing imports (see Corden: Economic Policy, Exchange Rates, And the International System ps.37-38, 94-95). These trade surpluses, particularly of China, have been a concern in the US, just as those of Japan were in the 1980s. These were tackled by negotiating voluntary export restraints’ (VERs), by which Japanese exporters of cars and semi-conductors agreed to limit their exports to the US to a given quota. This