https://www.todayonline.com/world/u...ners-deserve-scrutiny-over-currency-practices
US Treasury says nine trade partners, including S'pore, deserve scrutiny over currency practices
Published29 May, 2019
Updated 29 May, 2019
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- https://www.todayonline.com/world/u...ers-deserve-scrutiny-over-currency-practices#
The United States Treasury Department, in a twice-yearly report to Congress, said it reviewed the policies of an expanded set of 21 major US trading partners and found that nine required close attention due to currency practices: China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam.
The potential list of nations was expanded from around a dozen by lowering thresholds for review in areas such as the size of a country’s trade surplus with the US, the size of the trade surplus with the world, and the number of times the country intervenes in currency markets, reported CNBC.
President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on US$200 billion (S$276 billion) worth of Chinese imports and begun the process of imposing tariffs on another US$300 billion in Chinese goods.
Talks to end the trade dispute between the two countries collapsed earlier this month, with the two sides in a stalemate over US demands that China change its policies to address a number of key US grievances, including theft of intellectual property and subsidies for state enterprises.
The Treasury Department said Washington believes direct foreign exchange intervention by the People's Bank of China has been limited in the past year.
"Treasury will continue its enhanced bilateral engagement with China regarding exchange rate issues, given that the RMB (yuan) has fallen against the dollar by 8 per cent over the last year in the context of an extremely large and widening bilateral trade surplus," Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.
China needs to aggressively address market-distorting forces, including subsidies and state-owned enterprises, the Treasury statement said. Improved economic fundamentals would support a stronger yuan and help reduce China’s trade surplus with the US, it said.
The last time the US named a country a currency manipulator was in 1994, when China was branded one by the Clinton administration. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Mr Trump vowed to do so again as soon as he took office. So far, his administration has passed up five opportunities to do so in the twice-yearly currency report, CNBC noted. AGENCIES
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