Are Donald Trump’s tariffs destroying America’s ‘exorbitant privilege’?

These words were written 14 years ago: “Serious economic and financial mismanagement by the United States is the one thing that could precipitate flight from the dollar. “And serious mismanagement, recent events remind us, is not something that can be ruled out. “We may yet suffer a dollar crash, but only if we bring it on ourselves. The Chinese are not going to do it to us.” Barry Eichengreen, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, published that passage in the wake of the 2007-09 financial crisis. And they came to mind last week when Martin Whetton, the…