Trading Partner: Currency and Nations Warrant

trading partner: In a semiannual report to Congress, the department kept Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland on the monitoring list, saying the six nations warrant close attention to their currency practices, according to The Japan Times. Although the yen rose 6.3 percent versus the dollar last year and 1.0 percent in the first two months of this year, the report referred to the weakness of the currency. The department, however, concluded that no major U.S. trading partner is manipulating its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage, suggesting that President Donald Trump has backed away from his campaign pledge to label China a currency manipulator. There is little evidence that the yen is overvalued, it said. Such a reference and Trump's remark Wednesday that the dollar is getting too strong indicate the United States may push Japan to address a strong dollar and trade imbalances during a high-level bilateral economic dialogue to be held Tuesday in Tokyo and a meeting of the finance ministers of the two countries in Washington the same week. The real effective yen is 20 percent weaker than its 20-year historical average. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.