Global News Of Note: United States Finds No Trading Partners Manipulated Currency In 2022

What happens abroad impacts MSCI members in North America. Here is the latest economic, trade, and other policy news of note for the last week:

• The U.S. Department of the Treasury has determined, that in 2022, no major U.S. trading partners had manipulated their currencies for an export advantage. The department did keep China, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan on a “monitoring list” for close attention to foreign exchange and economic policies. Regarding China, the Treasury Department said, “China’s failure to publish foreign exchange (FX) intervention and broader lack of transparency around key features of its exchange rate mechanism make it an outlier among major economies and warrants Treasury’s close monitoring.” Read the full report here.
• As Reuters reported, China’s industrial production fell short of expectations in May. Output only increased 3.5 percent from May 2022 to May 2023, down from April’s 5.6 percent year-over-year growth. Reuters said the slowdown “increased expectations that Beijing would take more steps to stimulate its pandemic recovery.”
• China produced.42 million metric tons of primary aluminum in May, up 1.1 percent from May 2022. The country also manufactured 90.12 million metric tons of steel last month, but that number was down from the 92.64 million metric tons that China produced in April. Read more here and here
• The United Kingdom has removed an up-to-four percent countervailing tariff on stainless steel bars and rods imported from India. The UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) concluded that although subsidized imports would continue from India if the countervailing measure were no longer applied, it is unlikely the country’s industry would be injured if the measure was no longer in place. Read more here.
• The government of Mexico has launched an anti-dumping (AD) investigation into imports of threaded steel rods originating in China. The products involved are low and medium carbon or alloy threaded steel rods without tempering, with a diameter equal to or greater than 6.4 mm but less than 38.1 mm, and length equal to or greater than 152.4 mm, under tariff codes 7318.15.99 and 7318.19.99. Read more here.