Like Nixon before him, Trump is weakening the dollar in a bid to correct the US’s trade deficit

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Donald Trump is in some ways trying to replicate the monetary policy of Richard Nixon. Photograph: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times August 15th, 1971 was an auspicious day in global financial history. Then-US president Richard Nixon interrupted the evening broadcast of the US’s most popular TV show – Bonanza – to announce the dollar (as a currency) was delinking from gold, a move that remade the global monetary system in an instant. The announcement effectively dismantled the Bretton Woods system that had prevailed since the end of the second World War. It had pegged the dollar to the value of...