WASHINGTON—Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned ignoring recent steps by Beijing to liberalize its economy would endanger Chinese cooperation on other major geopolitical issues, particularly containing North Korea’s nuclear program.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to declare China a currency manipulator when the Treasury Department issues its next semiannual foreign-exchange report in April, which would be the first of several steps for the administration to slap China with a slew of tariffs.
Mr. Trump has already drawn complaints from Chinese officials by breaching diplomatic protocol when he spoke with the Taiwanese president, a step that also broke with the tradition of a hands-off role for the incoming president on foreign policy.