Currents News Staff
A day after global markets were sent spiraling, President Trump has doubled down on his trade tactics with China, tweeting, “massive amounts of money from China and other parts of the world is pouring into the United States for reasons of safety, investment, and interest rates! We are in a very strong position.”
China announced this week that it would no longer buy U.S. agricultural goods, a move the American Farm Bureau called a “body blow” to U.S. farmers.
The People’s Bank of China also dropped the value of its currency against the dollar, prompting the U.S. Treasury Department to promptly label China as a currency manipulator for the first time in decades.
“The People’s Bank manipulates the currency by intervening in the foreign exchange markets,” said White House trade advisor Peter Navarro.
China denies manipulating its currency, stating the exchange rate for the yuan is based on “market supply and demand.”
This latest move by Beijing is likely in response to Trump’s surprise announcement last week that he would impose a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports to the U.S. impacting goods like cell phones, clothes and shoes.
“The president’s view has always been we have negotiated in good faith, we want to continue to negotiate in good faith with the Chinese unfortunately his view is that we didn’t make any progress at the Shanghai meeting so he took an action,” said White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.