Triffin dilemma

Uncommon card · No. 190768

In international finance, the Triffin dilemma (sometimes the Triffin paradox) is the conflict of economic interests that arises between short-term domestic and long-term international objectives for countries whose currencies serve as global reserve currencies. This dilemma was identified in the 1960s by Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin. He noted that a country whose currency is the global reserve currency, held by other nations as foreign exchange (FX) reserves to support international trade, must somehow supply the world with its currency in order to fulfill world demand for these FX reserves. This supply function is nominally accomplished by international trade, with the country holding reserve currency status being required to run an inevitable trade deficit. After going off the gold standard in 1971 and setting up the petrodollar system later in the 1970s, the United States accepted the burden of such an ongoing trade deficit in 1985 with its permanent transformation from...

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