Washington, April 05: The US Sunday denied any link between delaying a report on China’s currency policies and Beijing’s support for any new sanctions against Iran due to its reluctance to roll back its nuke programme.
“No, it’s being delayed because that’s part of our international economic dialogue, which is directed at supporting a crucial issue for jobs creation, doubling our level of exports, and that depends on what other countries do,” White House Economic Adviser Lawrence H Summers told ABC news when asked if the delay in the currency exchange rate report is because the Obama Administration wants Chinese help on issues like sanctions against Iran.
A day earlier, the Obama Administration announced that it has decided to delay its report on international economic exchange rate policies and said its objective is to use the opportunity presented by G-20 and strategic and economic dialogue with China to make material progress in the coming months.
“We’ve got three major meetings, a meeting of the G-20 finance ministers, our strategic dialogue that takes place every year with China, and then the President’s meeting, building on the forum he created in London and Pittsburgh last year of the G-20 countries,” he said.
“Those are opportunities to engage with China, to engage with other countries that have large trade surpluses, other countries who think they can continue to rely on the United States as an importer of last resort.
And Secretary Geithner’s judgement — and I think it was the right one — was that we could report and recommend to Congress, you know, a much more effective way after we had had those meetings and taken stock of what kind of measurable progress we were able to generate out of those dialogues,” Summers said.
–PTI