Well crap I didn’t know about the 19% VAT on imports. I knew the Euros had huge subsidies covering agriculture, maybe twice that of the US, which is a form of protection of its own. As for the Chinese that peg must have some massive economic cost for them. The currency arguments I find a little complex, because the US has in the past held some sort of unofficial currency policy which they used monetary manipulation to enforce. So if they wanted strong dollars the US government bought up US dollars. If the policy was weak dollars, the US government sold. I guess the question being why would the US engage in strong dollar policy in light of a massive Chinese discount? Could they not fight the peg by pushing the US dollar lower?
“Could they not fight the peg by pushing the US dollar lower?”
While that has some chance of driving inflation in China, the peg would remain and make Chinese exports even cheaper to the rest of world.
All the while destroying savers in the US.