Money is several things: A medium of exchange, a bookkeeping tool, and a store of value. It is the store of value aspect that is our problem. Foreign nations trade with us to obtain our dollars, not our goods. They then spend these dollars elsewhere where they get greater value than if they used the money to buy our goods in a balanced trade agreement. These dollars never return to our domestic economy creating a shortage and the need to borrow from those that hold those dollars.
We should print what we need here at home. If we devalue the dollars held hostage by (mainly) Japan and China, too bad; they should have spent them back here while they had greater value.
The 'reserve currency' status of our dollar started after WW1 when we made loans to Europe so they could rebuild their ruined economies. They never could pay us back and held those dollars, using them to back up their own weak currencies. President after U.S. president kicked the can down the road by not insisting that these loans be repaid. WW2 left Europe again in shambles and we again loaned them billions, which again they failed to repay, adding yet more U.S. dollars circulating in the now 'global economy'. Sadly, as long as these nations keep using our dollars theirs will never fully recover. Many people, trading within their own borders, insist on American dollars over their own currency.
We are victims of our own success.
