Currency manipulation issues in trade agreements - To be or not to be?

Fred Bergsten's latest Peterson Institute's Policy Brief titled "Addressing Currency Manipulation through Trade Agreements" arguing for currency issues to be taken up in regional trade agreements is found here.

For a contrarian view, that currency manipulation issues should not find place in trade agreements, read this piece in Mireya Solis in the Brookings Institution blog.

"For the many reasons highlighted above, TPP countries are unlikely to agree that the current proposals in the United States on currency manipulation are a faithful interpretation of the IMF principles to which they already subscribe. Demanding that American trade negotiators introduce such a chapter at this critical stage in the negotiation process is akin to throwing a wrench in the works of the single most important trade initiative under way: one that will determine whether the United States is a key actor in shaping an Asian regional economic architecture or not, and one that will also affect the fate of negotiations with Europe. It would also mean that the United States is prepared to forego the possibility of a future Chinese entry into the TPP and give up the sizable benefits of promoting greater market reform, regulatory transparency, and compliance with intellectual property rules, to name just a few. All of this, for the sake of an unworkable proposal on currency manipulation."

Currency manipulation provisions in trade agreements - Imminently feasible or unreasonably optimistic?