In his State of the Union Address—February 4, 2020—President Trump outlined his reasons for punishing nations that manipulate their economies in order to achieve some internal policy goal, such as China. The president claimed that such manipulation was unfair and harmful to its trading partners. His main concern is that by manipulating its economy China "steals" jobs. It does this in several ways: By keeping the yuan at a lower exchange rate against other currencies—meaning that the People's Bank of China gives more yuan for each dollar than would occur in a free currency market—Chinese...
