VOA慢速英语--美国正式宣布,将越南、瑞士列入汇率操纵国名单

The United States Treasury¹ has officially identified Switzerland and Vietnam as currency manipulators.

A country's attempt to manipulate the value of its currency involves the central bank buying a lot if its own money. This creates scarcity², which pushes the value of the money up.

The U.S. Treasury move may be one of the final strikes against international trading partners by the departing administration of U.S. President Donald Trump³.

Officials said Switzerland and Vietnam were named because both had intervened in currency markets through June 2020 to prevent effective balance of payments adjustments.

A balance of payment is the difference between how much a country pays to other nations and how much it gets paid by other nations.

In its currency manipulation report, the Treasury said Vietnam had acted to get "unfair competitive advantage in international trade as well."

Foreign currency experts had expected the two countries to be named in the report.

The actions come as the worldwide coronavirus pandemic continues to slow international trade and increases U.S. deficits⁵ with trading partners. This angers Trump, who won office four years ago partly on a promise to decrease the deficit⁴.

To be named a manipulator, each country must have a $20 billion or more trade surplus with the United States. It also must have a currency intervention⁶ that is greater than 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and a worldwide account surplus that is also greater than 2 percent of GDP.

The U.S. Treasury also added Thailand and India to a watch list of countries it believes are taking measures to devalue their currencies against the dollar. The others on the list are China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore and Malaysia.

The U.S. Treasury report also said that India and Singapore had intervened in the foreign currency markets in a "sustained" way. The countries did not, however, meet other requirements to be named as manipulators.

Words in This Story

currency – n. the money that a country uses

manipulator – n. one who uses or controls other people in a clever and often unfair or selfish way

scarcity – n. a very small supply of something

adjustment – n. a small change that improves something or makes it work better

advantage – n. something (such as a good position or condition) that helps to make someone or something better or more likely to succeed than others

sustain – v. to provide what is needed for (something or someone) to exist, continue,

1 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

2 scarcity   

n.缺乏，不足，萧条

参考例句：

• The scarcity of skilled workers is worrying the government.熟练工人的缺乏困扰着政府。
• The scarcity of fruit was caused by the drought.水果供不应求是由于干旱造成的。

3 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

4 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

5 deficits   

n.不足额( deficit的名词复数 )；赤字；亏空；亏损

参考例句：

• The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Many of the world's farmers are also incurring economic deficits. 世界上许多农民还在遭受经济上的亏损。 来自辞典例句

6 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。