> Sure, but aren't we past rational debate on this point?
There is no point debating the administration or supporters. Peter Navarro hatched this idea, and he is nearly alone in his logic.
However, a broader debate is useful. A professor in Europe recently pointed out that Nixon did the same thing in the 1971. The intent was to destabilize and reset the dollar value compared to other currencies. He basically set off a grenade in the office. He proposed "New Federalism", and "Nixon's decision to end the gold standard in the United States led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. According to Thomas Oatley, "the Bretton Woods system collapsed so that Nixon might win the 1972 presidential election.""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon#Economy
By the way. Bretton Woods and Treasury monetary policy after WW2 was crafted by Lauchlan Currie. Currie was a renowned economist and worked at US Treasury from 1934. In WW2, Currie was Franklin Roosevelt's chief economic adviser. Currie was also a Russian agent. His US passport and US citizenship was revoked in ~1954 and he lived the remainder of his life in Colombia.
I thought the major shift after WWII with Bretton Woods was that throughout all of human wars up to that point, the winner usually took the land in some way or another and the US wasn't interested in that and more interested in a global economic stability pegged to the US dollar. And the US decided policing trade routes and peace across western countries was more important than claiming spoils of war.