Germany has put itself on a collision course with the US over the global economy, after its finance minister launched an extraordinary attack on policies being pursued in Washington.
Wolfgang Schäuble accused the US of undermining its policymaking credibility, increasing global economic uncertainty and of hypocrisy over exchange rates. The US economic growth model was in a "deep crisis," he also warned over the weekend.
His comments set the stage for acrimonious talks at the G20 summit in Seoul starting on Thursday. Germany has been irritated at US proposals that it should make more effort to reduce its current account surplus. But Berlin policymakers were also alarmed by last week's US Federal Reserve decision to pump an extra $600bn into financial markets in an attempt to revive US economic prospects through "quantitative easing".
On Friday, Mr Schäuble described US policy as "clueless". In a Der Spiegel magazine interview, to be published on Monday, he expanded his criticism further, saying decisions taken by the Fed "increase the insecurity in the world economy".
"They make a reasonable balance between industrial and developing countries more difficult and they undermine the credibility of the US in finance policymaking".
Mr Schäuble added: "It is not consistent when the Americans accuse the Chinese of exchange rate manipulation and then steer the dollar exchange rate artificially lower with the help of their [central bank's] printing press".
CNN
