미 상무부, 환율조작국에 상계관세 부과 추진

The Trump administration is proposing tariffs on goods from countries found to have undervalued currencies.
The move is aimed at nations, such as South Korea and China, and could hamper ongoing Washington-Beijing trade talks.
Kim Hyesung reports.
The U.S. Commerce Department said Thursday that it's proposing a new rule to impose tariffs on goods from countries found to have undervalued currencies.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the new rule would put foreign exporters on notice that the U.S. can countervail currency subsidies that harm its industries.
He added that foreign nations would no longer be able to use currency policies to the disadvantage of American workers and businesses.
President Donald Trump has long threatened to label China a currency manipulator, saying undervaluing the yuan against the greenback made Chinese goods artificially cheaper abroad.
But the new rule could also put goods from other countries including South Korea, Japan, India, Germany and Switzerland, at risk of higher tariffs.
Those five countries, along with China, were all listed on the Treasury Department’s semi-annual currency report’s “monitoring list,” which tracks currency market interventions, high global current account surpluses and high bilateral trade surpluses.
The Treasury Department was expected to release its biannual currency report in April but it has yet to do so.
The latest announcement by the U.S. Commerce Department puts further pressure on Beijing amid escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China as they work on a trade deal.
The Chinese yuan has weakened more than three percent this month to near seven yuan a dollar.
The Commerce Department did not yet outline the specific criteria that it would use to evaluate whether the U.S. pricing of a product was artificially low because of currency undervaluation.
Kim Hyesung, Arirang News.