He reiterated that commitment in his “Contract with the American Voter,” which said,<br />“I will direct the secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.”<br />And on Thursday, Mr. Trump reiterated his longstanding view of China in an interview with Reuters.<br />Mr. Trump also has not initiated the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico<br />and Canada, something he promised to “immediately pursue.”<br />“There’s definitely a huge gap between rhetoric and reality,” said Chad P. Bown, a senior fellow<br />and specialist on trade policy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.<br />WASHINGTON — President Trump keeps firing verbal broadsides at Mexico and China,<br />but so far his new administration has not acted to keep specific campaign promises about trade policy.<br />“I think they’re the grand champions at manipulation of currency,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “We’ll see what happens.”<br />But Mr. Mnuchin had already made clear hours earlier that the administration did not intend for anything to happen, at least immediately.<br />“It’s economic undevelopment, as far as our country is concerned.”<br />Mr. Trump has fulfilled one campaign promise on trade, signing an order to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a unsigned deal<br />that the Obama administration negotiated with Pacific Rim nations but had not submitted to Congress for approval.<br />Mr. Trump said during the presidential campaign that he would declare China a currency manipulator on “Day 1” of his administration.
