US declines to label China a currency manipulator, but blasts its transparency policies
The decision not to sanction China for currency manipulation comes after Trump hailed a ‘very positive’ call with President Xi Jinping
The US declined to label China a currency manipulator in a new Treasury report released on Thursday, but accuses Beijing of standing out among America’s major trading partners for lacking transparency in its exchange rate policies.
Treasury’s semi-annual report to Congress – called 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, averting 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 whether China has been manipulating the renminbi.
During US President Donald Trump’s first term, the Treasury, which was then led by Secretary Steve Mnuchin, labelled China a currency manipulator in 2019 – before then the US had not put China on the currency blacklist since 1994.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration “has put our trading partners on notice that macroeconomic policies that incentivise an unbalanced trading relationship with the United States will no longer be accepted”.
“Moving forward, Treasury will use all available tools at its disposal to implement strong countermeasures against unfair currency practices,” he said.
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