Baker Institute expert: Trump has no policy tools to push the dollar down

EXPERT ALERT

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Baker Institute expert: Trump has no policy tools to push the dollar down

HOUSTON – (Feb. 9, 2017) – President Donald Trump recently stated that the U.S. dollar is too strong. But an economist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy said the president does not have policy tools to push the dollar down.

Credit: shutterstock.com/Rice University

“The dollar will ultimately be determined by the mix of monetary and fiscal policy more than anything the president or his administration says,” said Russell Green, the Will Clayton Fellow in International Economics at the Baker Institute and a former U.S. Treasury Department official. “Officials can only move the dollar if markets think it signals a change in future action,” he said.

Green, who published an op-ed on the topic in the Huffington Post, is available to discuss this development with the media.

“Trump has no credible policy tools at his disposal that would push the dollar down,” Green said. “The Fed is slowly tightening, and Trump has big new spending plans paid for by a border adjustment tax and is threatening tariffs. All four of those put upward pressure on the dollar.”

For more information or to interview Green, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

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Related materials:

Green biography: http://bakerinstitute.org/experts/russell-green.

Founded in 1993, Rice University’s Baker Institute ranks among the top five university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute’s strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes — including a public policy course — and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute’s blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.