Steven Mnuchin says Trump fired a ‘warning shot’ over currency devaluation remarks

On Monday, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to complain about Russia and China partaking in a “currency devaluation game.” This was a false accusation because Moscow and Beijing, over the last five years, have seen their currencies appreciate, though the world’s second-largest economy has only seen a depreciation in the last few months.

Administration officials came to the defense of President Trump, claiming that it was merely a “warning shot.”

Speaking in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stated the president was only warning countries like China and Russia because they have devalued their currencies in the past.

“It was a warning shot at China and Russia about devaluation. China has devalued their currency in the past,” Mnuchin said. “They’ve used a lot of their reserves to actually support the currency. The president wants to make sure they don’t change their plans, and he’s watching it.”

Reuters also reports:

The U.S. Treasury, in a semiannual report on Friday, again refrained from naming any major trading partners as currency manipulators. The report came as the Trump administration pursues potential tariffs, negotiations and other restrictions to try to cut a massive trade deficit with China.

The report did not mention Trump’s recent threats to impose billions of dollars worth of tariffs on Chinese goods over Beijing’s intellectual property practices, or pending Treasury restrictions on Chinese investment in the United States.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders later told reporters aboard Air Force One on a trip by the president to Miami that China is on a U.S. Treasury Department watch list for being potentially labeled a currency manipulator.

Let’s hope the president, as well as his administration, start placing the Federal Reserve on the list of currency manipulators. It’s about time the U.S. government tell the Fed to stop debasing the U.S. dollar, which has lost 90 percent of its value since the inception of the central bank!