One of the few people on here who seem to know about the Plaza Accord is
@kdenkss
The Plaza Accord was literally the US forcing to tank the Japan economy by devaluing the USD and making the JPY too expensive to compete with US products In the 80s, Japan became so rich and started up BUYING UP large parts of the US, including the biggest companies (e.g. Sony Music was Columbia/CBS), biggest buildings (Rockefeller Center in NYC) and industry (via Nippon Steel) Meanwhile the car industry of US got destroyed because it couldn't compete with Japanese cheaper (and more reliable) cars, and not just the car industry There was only one option: force them to become more expensive so they'd stop being a threat That was the Plaza Accord:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord… If they didn't? Well US had built Japan full of US military bases so they didn't have a choice IMHO this was the main reason Japan's economy tanked and ended up in decades of stagnation called "The Lost Decade" and now actually decades as Japan never recovered from there Visiting Japan you'll realize the country in many ways is stuck in the great 80s where it was rich and leading the world. The music in hotel elevators is still 80s hits. And people smoke like it's still the 80s. Very few people know the Plaza Accord, and from the people that know it, a lot disagree with this take. They think Japan had more structural problems. I think it's more simple than that, US wanted to stop Japan from becoming the #1 world economy. China is an interesting story because it's similar to the rise of Japan but in this case US can NOT force them to do much economy-wise because it doesn't have military bases there and it can't afford a military conflict with China This story is partly why I think China is unstoppable and it'll be different than the rise of Japan which ended prematurely (imagine the world if it didn't, maybe the dominant culture now would be Japanese)....much to imagine about this