Is our thirst for foreign capital about to bite us? According to a report in the U.K.'s Telegraph, officials of the Chinese government warn that they are prepared to dump their U.S. reserves onto the market should the U.S. government impose trade restrictions in an effort to persuade China to correct the Yuan/dollar imbalance.China currently holds an estimated $900 billion in American bonds, and a total of $1.3 trillion worldwide. The warning is apparently a response to a bill backed by the Senate's Finance Committee that would impose tariffs to penalize China for currency manipulation.
This 'nuclear option', in the Telegraph's words, could be devastating to the already-weak dollar. However, as China's sugar daddy, such a blow to the U.S. economy would have vast repercussions on the Chinese economy as well. Any sane regime wouldn't take such a suicidal course of action.
So the question here, is one of sanity. Over the past decade, the Chinese leadership has shown many signs of economic savvy. One can only hope that the cooler heads prevail, and that this is simply brinksmanship aimed to carve out a better position in trade and monetary negotiations.
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