U.S. lawmakers said July 2 they would maintain a bid to impose sanctions on China over its allegedly undervalued yuan currency.
Four senior senators who have crafted legislation against China and other nations that allegedly manipulate their currencies for trade gains said in a statement that the sanctions option had not been taken off the table.
A mandatory twice-yearly U.S. Treasury report to Congress in May accused China of keeping its yuan currency "substantially undervalued" but stopped short of branding Beijing a currency manipulator.
President Bush's administration has resisted stiff pressure from lawmakers to sanction China for currency manipulation.
Democratic senators Max Baucus and Christopher Dodd and Republicans Chuck Grassley and Richard Shelby said they discussed "the progress China has made to appreciate its currency, as well as the urgent need for continued appreciation and exchange rate liberalization.
"We talked about the need for these important reforms in the context of recent turmoil in the American economy and growing uncertainty in the global economy," they said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao this week again called on the United States to stabilize the dollar, warning that the greenback's decline was posing threats to the global economy.
It was the second time this year that Wen had spoken out against the weak dollar and problems in the U.S. economy, and the impacts for China.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
