President Trump personally pressed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to label China as a “currency manipulator” two weeks ago, a move Mnuchin had previously resisted, three people with direct knowledge of the push said.
The pressure from Trump revealed a more forceful West Wing role in the highly controversial decision. Mnuchin had repeatedly refused to designate China as a currency manipulator because China’s currency moves didn’t meet the Treasury Department’s established criteria for that action.
But Trump exerted immense pressure on Mnuchin earlier this month, after the Chinese let their currency, the yuan, cross a symbolic threshold that it had not passed in some time.