Malaysia was removed from the US Treasury’s list of monitored trade partners

The United States (US) Treasury Department removed Malaysia from its list of significant trading partners that need to be closely watched for currency and macroeconomic policy.

Malaysia satisfies one requirement in both the June report and the November 2024 report, according to the US Treasury’s Office of International Affairs’ “Report to Congress: Macroeconomics and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States” report.

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act 2015 (Act 2015) states that a major trade partner will be added to the monitoring list if they fulfill two of the three requirements.

“Accordingly, Malaysia has been removed from the monitoring list in this report,” according to the report.
The 2015 Act requires the US Treasury to provide a report every six months on the macroeconomic policies and foreign exchange rates of the country’s major trading partners.

The act also obliges the US Treasury to conduct a more detailed analysis of macroeconomic policies and exchange rates for each major trading partner that meets the three criteria. The three criteria are a bilateral trade surplus with the US of at least US$15 billion (US$1= RM4.48); a material current account surplus of at least 3.0 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); and continuous intervention on one side in the foreign currency market for at least eight months in a year with a net purchase of at least 2.0 percent of the economy’s GDP within 12 months.