Trump rejected ‘his move’ to weaken dollar to boost trade

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump has rejected, for now, the idea of aggressive currency intervention that could give the US an edge with its trading partners by weakening the dollar, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The decision came at a White House meeting focussed on trade. Part of the agenda included a discussion of Trump’s concerns about the impact of a strong dollar, the people said.
During the recent meeting — which the White House didn’t include on Trump’s public schedule — officials weighed proposals to publicly talk down the dollar’s value or weaken the greenback by intervening in currency markets using Treasury’s $94 billion exchange stabilisation fund, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing the confidential
discussions.
The internal debate was revealed by Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, who told CNBC that the administration had “ruled out” a currency intervention. He rejected the assertion that Trump wanted to weaken the US dollar.
The president, though, has repeatedly raised concerns recently about the value of the dollar relative to trade competitors. He tweeted this month that Europe and China are playing a “big currency manipulation game” and called on the US to “MATCH, or continue being the dummies.”
During the meeting, White House trade adviser and China hawk Peter Navarro was among the officials advocating for a currency intervention, the people said, while Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin opposed the idea.
But one person familiar with the meeting said Trump hasn’t made a firm decision not to intervene in currency markets at some point and that the option remains under discussion.
The White House has held multiple meetings about the strength of the US dollar and how to address it, several people familiar with the matter have said.
“Just in the past week we had a meeting with the president and the economic principals, and we have ruled out any currency intervention,” Kudlow told CNBC in an interview. “The steady, reliable, dependable dollar is attracting money from all over the world.”
The Bloomberg dollar index extended its gains after Kudlow’s remarks, touching a one-month high.