[brigandish]

That link doesn't really give the full details. The Plaza Accord was agreed between 5 major economies (US, Germany, Japan, UK, France) to depreciate the dollar against those other currencies.

If we take this statement in the link:

> the intention of the Plaza Accord was to correct trade imbalances between the U.S. and Germany and the U.S. and Japan

Then:

a) Why were Britain and France interested and why are they completely omitted from the article?

b) Why didn't Germany end up in the mire like Japan?

It seems to me that Japan's officials agreed to something that either didn't suit its economy or the management of its economy was subsequently mishandled (not hard to believe given the ~25 years of finance scandals that are linked to the heart of government[1] - it's not hard to imagine things weren't any better in the preceding 15). As such, I'd also be very interested to know what OP was referring to because I'd find it hard to believe if it was the Plaza Accord.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/17/business/international-bu...