U.S. Declines To Label China A Currency Manipulator

The US declined to label China a currency manipulator in a new Treasury report released recently, but accused Beijing of standing out among America’s major trading partners for lacking transparency in its exchange rate policies, Fatima Hussein reported for the Associated Press (AP).

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Treasury — then led by Secretary Steve Mnuchin — labeled China a currency manipulator in 2019.

The Treasury’s semi-annual report to Congress — titled Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States — comes as the Trump administration seeks to strike a trade deal with China, aiming to avert a trade war that has been brewing between the two nations.

A Treasury official told reporters previewing the report that the US could, in the future, find evidence that China is manipulating its currency and will make a determination in the fall on whether China has been manipulating the renminbi, also known as the RMB.

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Treasury — then led by Secretary Steve Mnuchin — labeled China a currency manipulator in 2019. Before that, the US had not placed China on the currency blacklist since 1994.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration “has put our trading partners on notice that macroeconomic policies that incentivize an unbalanced trading relationship with the US will no longer be accepted.”