US Keeps South Korea on Foreign Exchange Monitoring List

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Yonhap) -- The United States has kept South Korea on its list of countries to monitor for their foreign exchange policies, a Treasury Department report showed Thursday.

The department released the updated list in the semiannual "Report to Congress on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States."

The latest monitoring list comprises South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland. All were on the list in the previous report released in January.

South Korea was excluded from the list in November 2023 for the first time since April 2016 but was placed back on it in November 2024. It has since remained on the list.

U.S. trading partners are put on the list when they meet two of the three criteria set by the U.S. Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015.

The criteria are a bilateral trade surplus with the U.S. of at least $15 billion, a material current account surplus of at least 3 percent of GDP and persistent, one-sided intervention in the foreign currency market for at least eight months during a year and with net purchases totaling at least 2 percent of an economy's GDP over a 12-month period.