Eyes on Germany

The U.S. Treasury has issued a damning criticism of Germany's chronic trade surplus in its annual report on worldwide exchange rate abuse, although it stopped short of labeling the country a currency manipulator.

Treasury officials told Congress that internal balances within the eurozone are disrupting the global trade structure, with almost nothing being done by north European states to curb their huge surpluses.
The report said Germany's current account surplus is running at 6.3 % of GDP, and Holland is even worse at 9.5 %. Yet the countries still cleave to fiscal austerity policies that constrict internal demand. ...

The U.S. Treasury said eurozone surplus states have "available room" for fiscal stimulus but refuse to act, despite repeated pledges by EU leaders  that more must be done to foster growth. "They have not yet made any concrete proposals capable of yielding meaningful near-term results." ...

A chart published in the report shows that Germany has overtaken China to become the biggest single
source of global trade imbalance, alone accounting for a large chunk of the U.S. deficit.

The U.S. Treasury's shift in focus away from China-and towards Germany's disguised mercantilism-
reflects mounting irritation in Washington over North Europe's "free-rider" strategy, which relies on exploiting