US looking at currency manipulation in tariff row, Treasury chief says

The Trump administration is looking beyond tariffs and non-tariff barriers to examine currency manipulation as it studies the issue ahead of an April deadline, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday.

"We're also looking at currency manipulation," Bessent said in an interview on Fox Business Network. "The U.S. has a strong dollar policy, but because we have a strong dollar policy, it doesn't mean that other countries get to have a weak currency policy."

On Thursday, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump directed his economic team to develop plans for reciprocal tariffs on every country that taxes U.S. imports, raising the risk of a global trade war.

Trump's memo stopped short of imposing more tariffs, but ordered his administration to calculate duties to match those other countries charge and to counteract non-tariff barriers by April 1.

"We're going to come up with what is the equivalent of ... what I would call a reciprocal index: country by country, the outstanding tariffs, non-tariff, the trade barriers and currency manipulation," Bessent told FBN.

Trump's planned tariffs could be very substantial if other countries did not reduce their tariffs, he added, with the ultimate tariff policies dependant on how trading partners respond.