US Dollar [Yonhap News file photo]

On July 23 (local time), the U.S. Donald Trump administration re-designated South Korea as a currency monitoring list country.

In its semi-annual report on the "Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States" submitted to Congress that day, the U.S. Department of the Treasury included 10 countries—South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and Thailand—on its currency monitoring list.

All 10 of these nations were also included in the monitoring list in the report released last January.

The report analyzed that, regarding South Korea, "the Korean won has faced persistent downward pressure despite a large current account surplus."

It further assessed that "Korean authorities have made progress in easing restrictions on foreign investors' participation in the domestic foreign exchange market," adding that "this is expected to benefit market liquidity and price discovery functions in the medium term."