Taiwan remains on U.S. currency manipulation monitoring list

Washington, July 23 (CNA) The United States has kept Taiwan on its latest list of countries to monitor for possible currency manipulation in a semi-annual report on the "Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States."

In a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that Taiwan is among the 10 trading partners that have been kept on the currency manipulation monitoring list, emphasizing that their "currency practices and macroeconomic policies merit close attention."

The other nine on the list are China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland, according to the U.S. Treasury. The 10 were on the monitoring list in the January 2026 report.

The U.S. Treasury report uses three criteria to determine if any of its trading partners should be named as a currency manipulator nation.

The three criteria are: having a trade surplus with the U.S. of at least US$15 billion; having a current account surplus of at least 3 percent of GDP; and persistent intervention in the foreign exchange market, shown by net purchases of foreign currency of at least 2 percent of GDP.

When an economy meets only one of the three criteria for two U.S. currency reports in a row, it is removed from the monitoring list. If, on the other hand, a country meets all three criteria, it can be tagged as a currency manipulator.

In the latest report, the U.S. Treasury said it found no major trading partner met all three criteria for enhanced analysis under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 during the four quarters ending December 2025.

Of the three indicators, Taiwan met two of them, according to the report: those for the trade surplus with the U.S. and the current account surplus.

The U.S. Treasury said Taiwan's extremely large current account surplus increased further during the report period, driven primarily by strong global demand for technology products, as did its bilateral trade surplus with the U.S.

Taiwan's current account surplus grew to 19.6 percent of GDP in 2025, compared to 14.1 percent in 2024, while its goods and services surplus with the U.S. almost doubled in 2025, rising by US$72 billion to hit US$145 billion, according to the report.

On the market invention factor, Taiwan fell just short of the currency manipulation factor, according to the report. Taiwan reported net purchases of foreign exchange of US$7.7 billion in 2025, about 0.8 percent of its GDP.

Taiwan's official disclosures on its foreign exchange net purchases were "broadly consistent with Treasury estimates," the report said.

Looking more closely at Taiwan's currency practices, the report said the intervention of Taiwan's central bank was largely aimed at easing the rapid appreciation of the Taiwan dollar against the U.S. dollar.

But the central bank also engaged in smaller net sales of the greenback in some months to reduce upward pressure on the American unit during in 2025, the report acknowledged.