Fabrizio Bensch | Reuters
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble in Berlin, Germany, March 16, 2017.
The United States continues to believe in free trade but wants to re-examine certain agreements and correct some excesses, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday after G-20 finance chiefs backtracked on past commitments about trade.
“What was in the past communique is not necessarily relevant from my standpoint,” Mnuchin told a news conference in Baden Baden after his first meeting with the finance chiefs of the world’s 20 biggest economies.
“We believe in free trade, we are in one of the largest markets in the world, we are one of the largest trading partners in the world, trade has been good for us, it has been good for other people,” Mnuchin said. “Having said that, we want to re-examine certain agreements.”
See also: G-20 fails to agree on free trade and protectionism — climate change is missing, too
