Commercial Policy and the Monetary Crisis of 1971

Abstract

In a fundamental sense, the international monetary crisis precipitated by the United States—or, more specifically, by the announcement by President Nixon of his New Economy Policy—on August is, 1971, had been on the cards at least since 1958. It was that long ago that Robert Triffin, of Yale University, first began to warn his academic and official colleagues of the dangerous instability of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) system of organising international currency relationships.¹