The US Treasury this week cleared China and a host of other Asian nations of the charge of being currency manipulators. In a triumph of the timeless mantra of “lies, damned lies and statistics”, however, the Treasury may find it hard to shrug off allegations of being a data manipulator itself.
Not for the first time, the Treasury’s semi-annual report stands accused of advancing a political agenda, rather than being an objective interrogation of the facts.
Its latest FX report was due in October. Instead, the document — which dropped the designation of China as a currency manipulator — eventually saw the light of day on January 13, in the week that Washington and Beijing were due to sign a “phase one” trade deal to help defuse tensions between the world’s largest economies.