US President Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to accuse China and Europe of “playing a big currency manipulation game and pumping money into their system in order to compete with USA”.
“We should MATCH, or continue being the dummies who sit back and politely watch as other countries continue to play their games - as they have for many years!” he tweeted.
The remarks came a day after Trump stated that a trade deal between Washington and Beijing is already in the works and that negotiations are underway via phone.
This preceded a meeting on 27 June between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Osaka G20 summit, where they agreed to resume trade talks, which had been paused since a breakdown in May.
“We’re going to work with China where we left off,” Trump said at the time, also vowing for the “time being” to hold off on his plan to impose new tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports.
He also said that Xi Jinping agreed that while the negotiations on the trade dispute between the two countries are ongoing, China will begin buying agricultural product from US farmers. He added that he was "in no hurry" in trade talks with China.
In September 2018, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng pledged that Beijing is not going to use its national currency as an instrument for a trade war with Washington.
The official said that in strict observance of “the spirit of the G20 communique, China would “not engage in competitive devaluation, or turn the renminbi into a tool for responding to trade disputes or other external events”.
The world’s two biggest economies have been embroiled in a trade war since Trump slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports of Chinese goods in 2018, citing concerns that Chinese trade practices were hurting American companies while demanding an adjustment to the terms of trade between the two countries.
The US President has also been threatening to impose tariffs on the nearly $267 billion worth of remaining Chinese imports if Beijing fails to address US demands. China, in return, responded with tariffs targeting US goods.