Swiss central bank chief sticks with forex tool, unperturbed by Trump

ZURICH (Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank will not refrain from using interest rates and currency interventions to steer monetary policy despite the risk of being branded a "currency manipulator" by the United States, its chairman said on Saturday.

Switzerland was labelled a currency manipulator by the U.S. Treasury in 2020 under the previous Donald Trump administration, which said the Swiss had intervened heavily in foreign exchange markets to reduce the value of the Swiss franc.

After arguing the franc was not being weakened to gain a trade advantage, Switzerland later had the label removed and was taken off the Treasury's watch list altogether in 2023.

"The mandate of the SNB is to ensure stable prices for Switzerland," Chairman Martin Schlegel told the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger when asked if the SNB had to be particularly careful with currency interventions at present.

"We have different levers to achieve this goal - interest rates and the exchange rate. We are sticking with this concept."

The bank's recent emphasis on interest rates rather than activity in the currency market was not a concession to U.S. President Donald Trump, Schlegel said.

"This is our monetary policy concept, and we have always handled it this way. The SNB policy rate is our primary monetary policy instrument," said Schlegel, who took charge at the SNB last October.

"Foreign exchange market interventions are supplementary measures that we use when necessary."

Countries designated as currency manipulators can face penalties such as being excluded from U.S. government procurement contracts.

The SNB would also consider reintroducing negative interest rates, to prevent the Swiss franc becoming too strong and prevent inflation falling too low, Schlegel added.

The central banker has raised the prospects of sub-zero rates several times in recent weeks, although in the interview he acknowledged such a policy was not popular.

Negative rates, used by the SNB from for nearly eight years until September 2022, had achieved their goal of making the franc less attractive, Schlegel said.

"On the other hand, it's is clear that negative interest rates are not attractive for savers," he said. "If we don't have to, we won't introduce negative rates again."

(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Christina Fincher)