The U.S. Treasury Department in a report released Friday sharply criticized China’s exchange-rate policies, but stopped short of labeling the country a currency manipulator, as President Donald Trump said he would do while running for office, but signaled last week a pullback from that campaign position.“China has a long track record of engaging in persistent, large-scale, one-way foreign-exchange intervention,” the Treasury Department said in its semiannual report on foreign exchange policies of major U.S. trade partners. Although Beijing has allowed the yuan to slowly appreciate in recent years and actively fought depreciation recently, its past interventions “imposed significant and long-lasting hardship on American workers and companies,” the Treasury said.Trump is counting on Chinese President Xi Jinping for support in a confrontation with North Korea. After the visit, Trump told the Wall Street Journal he would not name China a currency manipulator.“Treasury will be scrutinizing China’s trade and currency practices very closely, especially in light of the extremely sizable bilateral trade surplus that China has with the United States,” the Treasury report said. “Treasury is committed to aggressively and vigilantly monitoring and combating unfair currency practices,” the report added.***EPA Solicits Feedback on Regulations for Elimination, Modification
Suggestions on regulations should be eliminated or modified are being solicited by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a notice published April 13 in the Federal Register.Businesses, non-profit groups and others are urged to submit comments on what rules disproportionately impose costs, hurt job creation, are outdated or otherwise are inconsistent with this administration’s recent actions. It is part of Trump’s regulatory reform executive order directing agencies to reduce “unnecessary” federal rules through their newly created task forces.“Through this notice, EPA is soliciting such input from the public to inform its Task Force’s evaluation of existing regulations,” the notice said. “Although the agency will not respond to individual comments, the EPA values public feedback and will give careful consideration to all input that it receives. EPA will also be conducting outreach on this same topic.” Comments are due to the agency by May 15, 2017.
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