Donald Trump slams China and Russia as currency manipulators, contradicting his own treasury report
A report released on Friday had refrained from calling any US trading partner a manipulator
US President Donald Trump accused China and Russia of devaluing their currencies in a fiery tweet on Monday, breaking from his own Treasury chief’s view that no major trading partners are currency manipulators.
“Russia and China are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the US keeps raising interest rates. Not acceptable!,” Trump wrote.
His comments on China contradicted a Treasury Department semi-annual report on Friday that refrained from labelling any country a currency manipulator based on specific criteria. Russia is not among the 12 largest trading partners that are evaluated in the report.
Trump didn’t provide any evidence to substantiate his claim.
The attack added fuel to the brewing trade dispute between the US and China and drew swift criticism from Russia, which the White House recently sanctioned and clashed with over Syria. The Bloomberg Dollar Index slipped to its lowest level since March 26 following Trump’s tweet, while Treasuries fluctuated.
“The basis for this accusation is incomprehensible, and it only elicits a smile, because both business and the government are interested in a stable national currency,” Anatoly Aksakov, the chairman of the financial markets committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in response to Trump’s tweet, according to state news service RIA Novosti.