Comment by Taniwha

But the US$ is kept artificially high because it's used as a reserve currency for things like oil/etc - this is IMHO the main reason why the US is in this position, it wont let its currency float down leaving exporters screwed (but cheap imports for the masses). Just increasing the cost of imports but not making export prices higher (lower in fact because other countries will be raising tariffs against the US)

It's very much a case of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" fix an artificially high US$ and you can force everyone to trade in it for oil, but as a side effect you screw your exporters