Generally by "currency manipulation" people don't mean manipulation of the value of the currency in general but manipulation of its value with respect to foreig

Generally by "currency manipulation" people don't mean manipulation of the value of the currency in general but manipulation of its value with respect to foreign currencies in particular. So if the US just prints money to combat deflation that isn't currency manipulation but if it used all the money it printed to buy Yuan that would be. But really the whole public discourse around the topic is pretty confused. In the long run trade balances are governed by savings rates and its hard to keep things out of equilibrium in the long run.