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On December 16, 2020,  US Department of the Treasury delivered to Congress the semiannual Report on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States. Treasury determined that both Vietnam and Switzerland are currency manipulators. For each country, Treasury assessed, based on a range of evidence and circumstances, that at least part of its exchange rate management over the four quarters through June 2020, and particularly foreign exchange intervention, was for purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustments and, in the case of Vietnam, for gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade as well.

Based on these determinations, Treasury stated that it “will press for the adoption of policies that will permit effective balance of payments adjustments and eliminate the unfair advantages in trade that result from their actions.”

[Note: Two statutes are involved: the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 (the “2015 Act”) and the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 (the “1988 Act”). Because the standards and criteria in the 1988 Act and the 2015 Act are distinct, an economy could be found to meet the standards identified in one of the Acts without being found to have met the standards identified in the other.]

In addition, 10 economies — China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, and India — are on Treasury’s Monitoring List, with the last three as recent additions.

As you may recall, USTR recently opened a Section 301 Investigation into Vietnam’s currency valuation practices.

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Heather is the Lead Knowledge Lawyer for Baker McKenzie's global International Commercial & Trade and North America International Commercial practice groups. She is responsible for the direction and execution of legal content and thought leadership projects, trainings and other knowledge initiatives. Heather is also the Knowledge Lead for the Firm's Supply Chains Client Solution. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, Heather was a senior attorney in an international law firm focused on legal and policy issues raised by cross-border transactions, trade controls, and trade remedy litigation. Her practice centered on regulatory compliance, risk and supply chain management, and the intersection of customs and trade remedies laws, and she served as outside counsel to international and US corporations in the scientific equipment, consumer goods and other industries. Heather has also been an attorney with US Customs and Border Protection, a permanent US delegate to the World Customs Organization, a subject matter expert and workshop facilitator for US Department of Commerce commercial law development programs in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC.