However, the US continues to urge China to take the necessary steps to avoid a persistently weak currency. The closely watched report broadened the field of its scrutiny for potential exchange rate manipulation, since a weak currency makes US products less competitive and could undermine US’s efforts to cut a soaring trade imbalance. Beginning with this report, the Treasury is assessing all US trading partners with annual trade surpluses in goods of more than 40 billion USD. Based on trade in 2018, that standard covered 21 countries with nearly 3.5 trillion USD in goods trade with the US. With the newly expanded list, Treasury put nine trading partners on the monitoring list, including China.