Todd Bishop
US President Trump posted four posts on the social networking site Twitter on Monday (5th), criticizing China’s attempt to obtain hundreds of billions of dollars from the United States by manipulating exchange rates and unfair trade practices. The situation should have stopped many years ago.
The yuan fell below 7 against the dollar, closing at a new low of 11 years. Trump said that China has reduced the exchange rate to a historical low, describing the currency manipulation as a major violation. “From this point of view, everyone should now understand that tariffs are not borne by Americans but more than China. It is getting tens of billions of dollars in revenue.”
Trump said that China has been stealing American companies and factories by manipulating the exchange rate, damaging US jobs, depressing American workers’ wages, and hurting American farmers’ incomes.
The People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang said through the official website of the People’s Bank of China that the volatility of the renminbi is driven by the market and the current exchange rate is at an appropriate level. He stressed that as a responsible big country, China will abide by the spirit of the G20 leaders’ summit on the exchange rate issue, adhere to the market-determined exchange rate system, not engage in competitive devaluation, and not use the exchange rate for competitive purposes. Nor will the exchange rate be used as a tool to deal with external disturbances such as trade disputes.
