There is a proposal circulating in Washington, under the pretext of aiding developing countries affected by the pandemic, to increase the amount of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to be available at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by up to 2 trillion SDRs (about $2.8 trillion). It is being promoted by politicians and think tanks on the left, the foreign aid community, George Soros,1
“Soros’s suggested method provides aid that will “enable, encourage, and reinforce” voluntary compliance with international standards relating to environment, education, and labor. His proposal? The richer countries in the IMF issue Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for international assistance—i.e., international reserve assets—a process that shares the burden equitably, with the United States paying its fair share. A board of “eminent persons” chooses who’s eligible for assistance, and a separate audit commission evaluates those chosen.” George Soros, and the Chinese Communist Party, among others. The concept of a vast expansion of SDRs was discussed at the IMF’s spring 2020 meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee.
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The annual cost to American taxpayers to fund just the associated interest-rate and credit-risk subsidies of that massive additional amount could run into the tens of billions of dollars annually.
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China is also pushing hard for the SDR expansion. There are a number of reasons why the ruling Chinese Communist Party wants the increase. The most obvious motive, at the moment, is General-Secretary Xi Jinping’s desire to burnish China’s image as a world power on par with the United States. In that quest, Xi won a major victory when the IMF added the Chinese renminbi to the SDR basket of world reserve currencies in 2016.
That was done by the IMF in spite of the fact that the Chinese currency is not fully convertible. Convertibility is central to the definition of a global reserve currency. Xi wants the renminbi to be perceived as fully convertible due to its presence in the IMF basket, while retaining his government’s power to manipulate the Chinese currency.
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More:
https://www.heritage.org/internation...sive-expansion
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