German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has blamed the European Central Bank for an exchange rate that is “too low” for Germany, following criticism last week from US president Donald Trump’s top trade adviser.
Mr Schäuble acknowledged in a newspaper interview that the ECB had to set monetary policy for the eurozone as a whole, but said: “It is too loose for Germany.”
“The euro exchange rate is, strictly speaking, too low for the German economy’s competitive position,” he told Tagesspiegel. “When ECB chief Mario Draghi embarked on the expansive monetary policy, I told him he would drive up Germany’s export surplus . . . I promised then not to publicly criticise this [policy] course. But then I don’t want to be criticised for the consequences of this policy.”