THE CONSENSUS is that the decision to postpone the Treasury report on whether or not China is suppressing the value of the RMB is tied to recent Chinese cooperation on other diplomatic priorities, notably Iran and North Korea. Here's a typical take:

Nicholas R. Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and an authority on the Chinese economy, said the delay made sense given China’s recent steps on other American priorities, including tougher sanctions against Iran and pressure on North Korea over nuclear weapons. “Delaying the currency report is a small price to pay for what we’ve gotten so far,” he said.

This certainly seems plausible. But I'm curious about how exactly such a decision would be made. Do officials from State set benchmarks for cooperation on important issues, and then, if enough checks show up on the checklist, head over to Treasury and say, "Listen, guys, hold off on the currency report"? Or does the White House bring Treasury and State into the room and decide what will happen? Is there some kind of metric that weighs the value of a certain amount of cooperation on North Korea against a certain amount of international macroeconomic distortion? What if Treasury thinks the currency manipulation is too serious, and the diplomatic cooperation isn't sufficient to warrant delaying the report? Or perhaps Treasury never really wanted to state the obvious on Chinese currency manipulation, and the diplomatic progress gives them an excuse? How do they plan to win Chuck Schumer over?

If all this stuff does gets decided in meetings between State, Treasury and the White House, I sure hope some paranoiac is surreptitiously making digital recordings so that eventually, some years down the road, we find out what actually went down.