> arguments against mercantilism

It has been funny to watch the rise of "China is beating us" rhetoric against the steady backdrop of "mercantilism is obsolete/bad" dogma, because the elephant in the room is that China has been running a textbook mercantilist playbook.

Looks to my uneducated eye like China has been enforcing competitive markets internally, with consistent economic policies. Meanwhile the US has stopped enforcing antitrust altogether and keeps violently changing its mind about economic policy every four years.

And then externally Chinese policy is oriented around suppressing the value of its currency, which is basically a monopolist's tactic--artificially lowered prices in order to crowd out competition.

I think that's mercantilist-ish, but kind of a modern version?

It's definitely the opposite of what the US does, the currency is the world reserve and therefore drives the price of the dollar above what it would be without trade, which I guess makes exporting from the US much more difficult?

Anyone who is an expert in global economics please correct me here :)