US President Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told the Financial Times that Germany is using a “grossly undervalued” euro to its advantage against other nations in the European Union and the United States.
The euro jumped after the report crossed the wires, and touched a five-day high of 1.0764.
It is up by 0.6% to 1.0763 against the dollar as of 7:48 a.m. ET.
“A big obstacle to viewing TTIP as a bilateral deal is Germany, which continues to exploit other countries in the EU as well as the US with an ‘implicit Deutsche Mark’ that is grossly undervalued,” Navarro, the head of Trump’s new National Trade Council, told the FT on Tuesday.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, is a proposed trade agreement between the EU and the US.
Last week, Ted Malloch, the man who is tipped to become the US ambassador to the EU, told the BBC that the euro "could collapse" in the next 18 months.
"The one thing I would do in 2017 is short the euro," Malloch told BBC. "I think it is a currency that is not only in demise but has a real problem and could in fact collapse in the coming year, year and a half. I am not the only person or economist of that point of view."