I am confused by the article’s insistence that the Euro is not a viable alternative because it’s “one currency, 20 countries”. If anything, the sheer number of countries make sure that a single election is not going to affect financial and economic policies all that much - which is the main reason for the USD’s fall from grace right now.
As a European, the Euro can’t replace the dollar. It’s not about how stable it is, it’s about how many Euros there are. Whichever country will be the world reserve currency will have to produce so much currency to be used all around the world that their non digital exports will never be competitive. The Euro just isn’t produced in large enough quantities to be used as a world reserve currency, its production and distribution is tightly controlled for use in European and European partner markets. At least not right now. A long time ago some OPEC countries wanted to try out the idea of using Euros, but just couldn’t get enough liquidity to trade all the oil in Euros.
Donald Trump wants the US to both be a goods exporting powerhouse and the world reserve currency. He thinks it’s possible, that these diametrically opposed goals have a middle sweetspot where one can be just enough of a world reserve currency not to worry about debt anymore, but also a country that others depend on for manufacturing. That’s what all the tariff dancing is all about. I think he’s nuts, but hey, every economic theory needs to be tested. Just wish we were testing more sophisticated economic theories.
Anyway, as of this moment Europe is not geared for it. Not industrially, not financially and to be honest, i don’t think Europe is even into it. But it’s not impossible. It would just require a lot of changes.
I fully agree with you on the current liquidity issues, and certainly on the loss of manufacturing competitiveness that comes with having reserve currency status.
My main economic concern with Trump’s policies is simply that “advanced” economies will never really be able to compete in the manufacturing field again. Trump should know - he is surrounded by the richest men in the world, and the only one that does any manufacturing at all, and only as a side gig is Musk. All the other ones only do digital and finance/investment.
I agree that Europe probably doesn’t want to get into that space at the moment. I am afraid Europe is pushed into doing a lot of things right now it didn’t and doesn’t want to do. The decision point would probably come if Trump’s tariffs are really just paused and start being enacted. Then Europe will have to massively increase its trade with other nations, which will also have to do the same thing, and then using USD becomes incredibly impractical, especially with the wild swings it is going to have if tariffs are re-enacted.
And, again, totally agreed. This will require a lot of changes, and they will be painful. It just feels like there aren’t a whole lot of alternatives.
Trump is surrounded by people who didn’t make their wealth. This is why it’s such a disaster. Someone who was handed everything has no fucking clue about what life is actually like. And ya know what? I’m fucking sick and tired of subsidizing billionaires. Sure, someone who built an empire? Yeah maybe they could run a government but these aren’t those people. These are people who have never done anything. Like, nothing at all. Every single person in this administration was born into wealth and is trying to kill us for more of it.
Yea, I’m trying to look back to think of manufacturing powerhouses that also printed reserve currency and can only think of the British empire and the post-war Bretton-Woods US…so this could only work if the rest of the world is destroyed or colonized/vassalized :/
I would say for this to happen, the biggest challenges facing Europe would be to massively develop its services and post soviet democratic countries would have to be on board with their exports losing competitiveness in the global market. Poland, for instance, is industrializing further but interesting to note that 90% of their goods market is the EU and only 10% goes of out EU. So in a way, post soviet democracies can still be goods exporters inside EU’s internal market. Letting go of industry is not something i believe post soviet democracies would ever accept.
Western, central and southern europe already survive on luxury and unique regional products to support their industry despite their high cost of living, so competitiveness is not a big issue there.
As for services, specially tech, European customers are used to having easy access to highly unregulated digital tech from the US, with union busting, privacy invasion and low taxation, that gives them an unfair edge against tech developed in Europe. Europe has begun to subsidize all European tech (you can even see some games and software with EU stickers for receiving subsidies), but i think Europe needs to tax US digital services and goods, otherwise there is no competing with massive billionaire fortunes that are president friends. There’s no competing when your competitor’s workers don’t have maternity leave, work 60-70 hours a week and have 10 days holidays a year and thank goodness nothing like that will ever fly around European unions. Trust me, Elon and Walmart tried. Without taxation motivation, there will never be a European alternative to US tech, but they don’t want to tax tech without an alternative. Catch 22.
And this is the EU. Anything that takes the US 10 years, takes the EU 20. This is good in a way, because everyone is heard and there is no crazy orange lunatic coming to change fundamental laws overnight, but to react against something like this will take a while. In the EU we’re used to wait, we understand why we wait. But international markets might not be so patient. Also by the time the EU starts changing meaningfully, it is very possible Trump is not president anymore, making the change pointless, so i see the EU doing their usual “looking busy and waiting” routine.
The world does not trade in US dollars, thats a myth. If a Japanese company buys something in Australia, they convert from yen to AUD, they don’t go through the USD. Thats not what “reserve currency” means.
There used to be a thing called the Gold Standard. The amount of gold you had in reserve was linked to the amount of money you could print. The gold standard failed because it was too restrictive.
After WW2, the US proposed that instead of a lump of metal, money creation would be tied to the national economy. The US economy would be the “gold reserve” of the world and all the other currencies woudl be compared to it.
The goal was to reduce the amount of foreigners using USD, as this was causing American notes to leak overseas and made inflation difficult to determine.
The Euro is used over a range of economies that are only loosely tied together. Although crude monetary policy like interest rates are common, tax collection is up to individual countries, so the Euro is not a stable value as there are too many variables.
I am confused by the article’s insistence that the Euro is not a viable alternative because it’s “one currency, 20 countries”. If anything, the sheer number of countries make sure that a single election is not going to affect financial and economic policies all that much - which is the main reason for the USD’s fall from grace right now.
As a European, the Euro can’t replace the dollar. It’s not about how stable it is, it’s about how many Euros there are. Whichever country will be the world reserve currency will have to produce so much currency to be used all around the world that their non digital exports will never be competitive. The Euro just isn’t produced in large enough quantities to be used as a world reserve currency, its production and distribution is tightly controlled for use in European and European partner markets. At least not right now. A long time ago some OPEC countries wanted to try out the idea of using Euros, but just couldn’t get enough liquidity to trade all the oil in Euros.
Donald Trump wants the US to both be a goods exporting powerhouse and the world reserve currency. He thinks it’s possible, that these diametrically opposed goals have a middle sweetspot where one can be just enough of a world reserve currency not to worry about debt anymore, but also a country that others depend on for manufacturing. That’s what all the tariff dancing is all about. I think he’s nuts, but hey, every economic theory needs to be tested. Just wish we were testing more sophisticated economic theories.
Anyway, as of this moment Europe is not geared for it. Not industrially, not financially and to be honest, i don’t think Europe is even into it. But it’s not impossible. It would just require a lot of changes.
Imma stop you right there
I fully agree with you on the current liquidity issues, and certainly on the loss of manufacturing competitiveness that comes with having reserve currency status.
My main economic concern with Trump’s policies is simply that “advanced” economies will never really be able to compete in the manufacturing field again. Trump should know - he is surrounded by the richest men in the world, and the only one that does any manufacturing at all, and only as a side gig is Musk. All the other ones only do digital and finance/investment.
I agree that Europe probably doesn’t want to get into that space at the moment. I am afraid Europe is pushed into doing a lot of things right now it didn’t and doesn’t want to do. The decision point would probably come if Trump’s tariffs are really just paused and start being enacted. Then Europe will have to massively increase its trade with other nations, which will also have to do the same thing, and then using USD becomes incredibly impractical, especially with the wild swings it is going to have if tariffs are re-enacted.
And, again, totally agreed. This will require a lot of changes, and they will be painful. It just feels like there aren’t a whole lot of alternatives.
Trump is surrounded by people who didn’t make their wealth. This is why it’s such a disaster. Someone who was handed everything has no fucking clue about what life is actually like. And ya know what? I’m fucking sick and tired of subsidizing billionaires. Sure, someone who built an empire? Yeah maybe they could run a government but these aren’t those people. These are people who have never done anything. Like, nothing at all. Every single person in this administration was born into wealth and is trying to kill us for more of it.
Yea, I’m trying to look back to think of manufacturing powerhouses that also printed reserve currency and can only think of the British empire and the post-war Bretton-Woods US…so this could only work if the rest of the world is destroyed or colonized/vassalized :/
I would say for this to happen, the biggest challenges facing Europe would be to massively develop its services and post soviet democratic countries would have to be on board with their exports losing competitiveness in the global market. Poland, for instance, is industrializing further but interesting to note that 90% of their goods market is the EU and only 10% goes of out EU. So in a way, post soviet democracies can still be goods exporters inside EU’s internal market. Letting go of industry is not something i believe post soviet democracies would ever accept.
Western, central and southern europe already survive on luxury and unique regional products to support their industry despite their high cost of living, so competitiveness is not a big issue there.
As for services, specially tech, European customers are used to having easy access to highly unregulated digital tech from the US, with union busting, privacy invasion and low taxation, that gives them an unfair edge against tech developed in Europe. Europe has begun to subsidize all European tech (you can even see some games and software with EU stickers for receiving subsidies), but i think Europe needs to tax US digital services and goods, otherwise there is no competing with massive billionaire fortunes that are president friends. There’s no competing when your competitor’s workers don’t have maternity leave, work 60-70 hours a week and have 10 days holidays a year and thank goodness nothing like that will ever fly around European unions. Trust me, Elon and Walmart tried. Without taxation motivation, there will never be a European alternative to US tech, but they don’t want to tax tech without an alternative. Catch 22.
And this is the EU. Anything that takes the US 10 years, takes the EU 20. This is good in a way, because everyone is heard and there is no crazy orange lunatic coming to change fundamental laws overnight, but to react against something like this will take a while. In the EU we’re used to wait, we understand why we wait. But international markets might not be so patient. Also by the time the EU starts changing meaningfully, it is very possible Trump is not president anymore, making the change pointless, so i see the EU doing their usual “looking busy and waiting” routine.
It might happen, just not soon.
Right, seems like a positive point not a negative one?
I don’t understand why the euro isn’t considered the best potential replacement for the dollar
The world does not trade in US dollars, thats a myth. If a Japanese company buys something in Australia, they convert from yen to AUD, they don’t go through the USD. Thats not what “reserve currency” means.
There used to be a thing called the Gold Standard. The amount of gold you had in reserve was linked to the amount of money you could print. The gold standard failed because it was too restrictive.
After WW2, the US proposed that instead of a lump of metal, money creation would be tied to the national economy. The US economy would be the “gold reserve” of the world and all the other currencies woudl be compared to it. The goal was to reduce the amount of foreigners using USD, as this was causing American notes to leak overseas and made inflation difficult to determine.
The Euro is used over a range of economies that are only loosely tied together. Although crude monetary policy like interest rates are common, tax collection is up to individual countries, so the Euro is not a stable value as there are too many variables.