The US Treasury has put Switzerland and Vietnam on a watch list of currency manipulators, Taiwan

The US Treasury Department on December 16 named Vietnam and Switzerland as currency manipulators and added Taiwan, Thailand and India to its watch list of currency manipulators.

The US Treasury Department on Wednesday named Switzerland and Vietnam as currency manipulators, adding that both countries had intervened in currency markets to prevent effective balance of payments adjustments by June 2020. The US Treasury Department also said in its semi-annual currency manipulation report that Vietnam had acted to gain an unfair competitive advantage in international trade.

The Treasury also added Taiwan, Thailand and India to its watch list of currency manipulations, bringing the list to 10 countries that now include China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore and Malaysia, the Liberty Times reported. In its report, the Treasury said India and Singapore had intervened in foreign exchange markets in a ‘consistent and asymmetric manner’ but had failed to meet other criteria for being designated currency manipulators.

To be named a currency manipulator, countries must have a bilateral trade surplus of at least $20bn with the US, foreign exchange intervention of more than 2 per cent of domestic GDP and a global current account surplus of more than 2 per cent of GDP.