Washington: The United States has retained South Korea on its monitoring list for foreign exchange policies, as revealed by a Treasury Department report released Thursday. This decision is part of the semiannual "Report to Congress on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States."

According to Yonhap News Agency, the updated monitoring list includes South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland. These countries were also on the previous list issued in January. Notably, South Korea was removed from the list in November 2023, marking the first time since April 2016, but was reinstated in November 2024 and has remained on the list since then.

The U.S. Treasury Department evaluates its trading partners based on criteria set by the U.S. Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. Countries are placed on the monitoring list if they meet at least two of three criteria: having a bilateral trade surplus with the U.S. of at least $15 billion, maintaining a material current account surplus of at least 3 percent of GDP, and engaging in persistent, one-sided intervention in the foreign currency market for at least eight months in a year, with net purchases amounting to at least 2 percent of an economy's GDP over a 12-month period.