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The
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said earlier this month that
under Trump's direction, it was opening an investigation into
whether Vietnam has been undervaluing its dong currency and
harming U.S. commerce.
"If the dong is devalued, it will seriously hurt the economy,"
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told Adam Boehler, head of the
U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, at a meeting
in Hanoi on Monday.
"Vietnam is not using exchange rate policy to create competitive
advantage in international trade."
Vietnam has been on Washington's watch list of currency
manipulators because of its trade surplus with the United
States, a large current-account surplus and a perception that
its central bank has been actively buying foreign currency.
The U.S. Treasury in August found that Vietnam's currency was
undervalued in 2019 by about 4.7% against the dollar due in part
to government intervention.
Phuc in a statement asked Boehler to tell Trump and the USTR to
"have a more objective assessment of reality in Vietnam" with
regard to the trade imbalance.
The U.S Embassy in Vietnam was unable to immediately provide
comment on the statement.
Vietnam's trade surplus with the United States, its largest
export market, widened to $44.3 billion in the first nine months
of this year from $33.96 billion in the same period last year,
according to Vietnam's customs data.
The U.S. Treasury Department is unlikely to release its
long-delayed semi-annual report to Congress on international
currency manipulation until after the U.S. presidential election
on Nov. 3, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Martin Petty)
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