By dropping undeserved designation, US opens door to more fruitful discussions
In a goodwill gesture before the signing of the "phase one" trade deal between China and the United States, scheduled to take place in Washington on Wednesday, the US Treasury Department announced on Monday that it no longer considers China to be a currency manipulator. This comes five months after it designated the country as such at the height of trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.
The latest move, welcome as it is, is not a favor done to China by the US, though, because China should not have been slapped with the discriminatory label to begin with.
The country is committed to keeping the yuan's exchange rate basically stable, at what the People's Bank of China, the central bank, calls "a reasonable and balanced level", and it has never resorted to competitive devaluation to gain an edge when conducting trade activities with any other country, nor used its currency as a tool in the trade dispute.