Trump launches peculiar attack on China and Russia for 'playing the Currency Devaluation game'
- President Donald Trump attacked China and Russia saying the countries are "playing the Currency Devaluation game."
- The tweet comes a few days after a report from the Treasury Department that did not name either country as a currency manipulator.
President Donald Trump attacked China and Russia for changes in their currency in a tweet Monday, in a peculiar attack that came despite the Treasury Department naming neither as currency manipulators.
"Russia and China are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the U.S. keeps raising interest rates," Trump said. "Not acceptable!"
The Treasury Department did not list either China or Russia as a currency manipulator in its semi-annual currency report released on Friday.
While the Treasury expressed concerns about the large trade deficit with China, the report only placed the country on its monitoring list. Russia was not named in the report, which examined the US's relationship with its 12 largest trading partners and Switzerland.
In the report, the Treasury did ding China for recent changes in their economy and urged the country to reduce government intervention.
"The increasingly non-market direction of China's economic development poses growing risks to its major trading partners and the long-term global growth outlook," the report said. "China should advance macroeconomic reforms that support greater household consumption growth and help rebalance the economy away from investment."
Additionally, in contrast to Trump's claim, the Chinese yuan has actually strengthened against the US dollar over the past year.
Trump's Twitter attack is the latest in a simmering trade battle between China and the US. Both sides announced tariffs against goods from the other country in the past month and warned that more could be on the way. For instance, the president said that the US may slap tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.