IF YOU FIND Alan Greenspan’s economic statements difficult to follow, you will find Treasury secretary John Snow’s pronouncements on the dollar positively inscrutable. According to Snow, the administration (a) has a “strong-dollar policy . . . we’ve had it forever”; (b) is delighted that the weaker dollar is helping American industries to sell more goods abroad; and (c) “has no conscious policy . . . to move the dollar at all.” Oh yes, the Treasury secretary is also in favor of “a sound [U.S.] currency”. Get it? The administration wants the dollar to be strong and weak and sound, but has no policy to affect its value. By comparison, the Delphic Greenspan is a model of clarity.

Best to start with the facts. Although the dollar is down only 6 percent against the average of the currencies of all its trading partners, it is down over 25 percent against the euro in the past year. So Europe’s politicians, to whom the euro is a political project aimed at creating a rival to the dollar, are delighted. But hard-pressed European manufacturers are watching their goods become increasingly expensive in the crucial American market. Indeed, some newspapers in America are starting to list attractively priced made-in-the-USA substitutes for higher priced German cars, French wines, and Italian designer goods.