FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank and Germany are not currency manipulators, and the bloc's monetary policy reflects the state of its economic recovery and not a desire for a weak euro, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump's top trade adviser last week claimed that Germany is using a grossly undervalued currency to take advantage of the U.S., accusing the euro zone's biggest and strongest economy of currency manipulation.
"First and foremost: we are not currency manipulators." Draghi told the European Parliament's committee on economic affairs in Brussels. "Second, our monetary policies reflect the diverse state of the (economic) cycle of the euro zone and the United States."
"The single market would not survive with continuous competitive devaluations," Draghi said.
The ECB sets monetary policy for the entire 19-member bloc.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi, Francesco Canepa and Andreas Framke; Editing by Louise Ireland)