April 17, 2018

Donald Trump Has No Idea What China Is Doing

Here’s the latest from our president:

Hmmm. Here’s what his Treasury Secretary had to say about China a few days before:

Over 2017, the Chinese currency generally moved against the dollar in a direction that should, all else equal, help reduce China’s trade surplus with the United States….More recently, since the beginning of 2018, the renminbi (RMB) has continued to strengthen against the dollar, up 3.7 percent as of end-March.

….China does not publish its foreign exchange market intervention, but Treasury estimates that Chinese authorities significantly curtailed intervention in the second half of 2017 that they had been undertaking to support the value of the RMB. Foreign exchange reserves sold in the second half of the year are estimated at $6 billion, a significant decline compared to estimated sales of close to $250 billion during the second half of 2016.

Here it is in chart form. First, the exchange rate:

And market interventions to prop up the renminbi:

In other words, according to Trump’s own Treasury Department, the value of China’s currency has increased and the level of intervention has been nearly zero during Trump’s entire term in office. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps this doesn’t really matter. Still, WTF? Does Mnuchin even talk to his boss about this stuff?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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