Olin Wethington

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow named a new special envoy to head up a bid to persuade China to effectively let its yuan currency rise in value against the dollar. Olin Wethington, 56, a counselor to Snow who represented the Treasury Department in the economic reconstruction of Iraq and the reduction of its debt, will take over from Paul Speltz, the U.S. executive director at the Asian Development Bank, who has held the position for the last 13 months.

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow named a new special envoy to head up a bid to persuade China to effectively let its yuan currency rise in value against the dollar. Olin Wethington, 56, a counselor to Snow who represented the Treasury Department in the economic reconstruction of Iraq and the reduction of its debt, will take over from Paul Speltz, the U.S. executive director at the Asian Development Bank, who has held the position for the last 13 months.

The Bush Administration on Tuesday accused China and Taiwan of manipulating their exchange rates to gain unfair advantage in international trade. In a report to Congress, the Treasury Department said Beijing and Taipei artificially depress the value of their currencies, thereby keeping the prices of their products low and inflating their export sales to the United States and other nations. The result is widening U.S. trade deficits and shrinking U.S. exports to the two nations, officials said.

Despite the Clinton Administration's renewed effort to bolster the sagging dollar, the U.S. currency resumed its downward spiral Thursday, falling against the Japanese yen, the British pound and the Swiss franc and edging up only slightly against the German mark. With his options limited, and timing considered crucial, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin declared, "This Administration believes a strong dollar is in America's national interest."

When senior European officials gather today in Brussels, a resolution of one of international commerce's most intransigent problems will be hanging in the balance--and with it one of the best hopes for healing faltering economies from Pasadena to Paraguay.

Just a year ago, an increasingly popular President Clinton was heading for his first economic summit in Tokyo, where he showed the world a flattering new side of a leader who had been focusing on domestic issues. How things change. Today, Clinton departs for his second economic summit, this one in Naples, Italy, starting Friday, with his roller-coaster standing in opinion polls on the downward slope and his currency scraping a rocky bottom.

Although McDonnell Douglas' proposal to sell 40% of its commercial airline business to Taiwan investors has set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill--with 30 senators asking President Bush to intercede--experts said Wednesday that it will probably win relatively easy approval from the Administration. Blocking the deal would be inconsistent with the Bush Administration's free-trade ideology, experts said.