The Lessons of Bretton Woods Talking Points:
- The 75th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference was this week, and the concerns that Bretton Woods tried to address back in 1944 are reasserting themselves as significant threats to the global economy in 2019.
- As lessons from Bretton Woods are forgotten, the US-China trade war represents a true existential threat to the post-World War II international trade order, and in turn, the globalized economy that has grown out of the ashes of history.
- The US Dollar may be facing a long-term structural disadvantage as the rise of China and other major economies in Asia at a time when western economies are struggling; calls to end US Dollar hegemony as the world reserve currency will only grow louder.
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This week, 75 years ago, policymakers from around the world gathered in a quaint New Hampshire town called Bretton Woods. With the global economy at a nadir thanks to the devastating impact of World War II, policymakers were keen to take advantage of the crisis, a significant turning point in human history: a new framework could be developed that would prevent another conflict on the scale of World War I or World War II from ever taking place again.
Given the state of affairs for the global economy, particularly the rise of protectionism vis-à-vis tariffs, it’s a good time to remember why the Bretton Woods system was agreed upon in the first place, and why the lessons of
