MNI INTERVIEW: FX Deal, Treasury Fee Not On Trump Agenda-Miran

Policies such as a potential Mar-a-Lago currency accord between the U.S. and China or forcing foreign holders of Treasuries to extend the maturity of their holdings are expressly not on the Trump administration’s agenda, Stephen Miran, Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told MNI Thursday.

Miran said the ideas outlined in a paper he penned last year before being asked to join the administration were not meant to be interpreted as administration policy, and expressed frustration that what was meant to be an inventory of possible avenues for addressing trade imbalances had taken on a life of its own.

“I wrote this in November before I was considered for this role. It has nothing to do with administration policy,” Miran said in an interview. “It's not advocacy, and I repeat that in the paper. This is a piece of investment research, not policy advocacy, and everyone has completely run away with it.” 

Recent trepidation in the markets about a possible loss of investor faith in U.S. dollar assets has added to the concerns that proposals even more unorthodox than recent tariffs could lie in wait. 

NOT ON THE AGENDA

That is simply not the case, Miran said. 

“None of it is part of the administration's agenda,” he said, arguing that Donald Trump is a transparent president who speaks to the press often and would not be shy about voicing support for any proposals that he was seriously considering. 

In his November piece, Miran posited that “after a series of punitive tariffs, trading partners like Europe and China [could] become more receptive to some manner of currency accord in exchange for a reduction of tariffs.” Such an accord might include efforts to push official holders of Treasuries into longer-maturity holdings, according to the paper.

The paper also mentions the possibility of using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, “to disincentivize the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves,” including by imposing “a user fee on foreign official holders of Treasury securities, for instance withholding a portion of interest payments on those holdings.”

Again, this was an examination of unorthodox policy ideas, not a push for their implementation, Miran said. 

"People are looking for some secret plan and some piece that I wrote as an investment analysis in November, instead of just listening to the president telling you what he wants," he said.