Mario Draghi took the Trump administration to task Monday, rebutting recent assertions that Germany is a currency manipulator and warning against the rollback of post-crisis financial regulation.

Speaking at a hearing of European lawmakers in Brussels, the European Central Bank president responded to the charge by U.S. National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro and others that Germany is using a “grossly undervalued” euro to gain an unfair trade advantage.

“The ECB has not intervened in the foreign exchange markets since 2011,” Draghi said, adding that Germany’s trade surplus was the result of productivity gains. “Germany has a significant bilateral trade surplus with the U.S., a material current account surplus, but it has not engaged in persistent one-sided intervention in the foreign exchange market.”

In a question-and-answer session punctuated with lawmakers’ concerns over the shifts in global economic and financial policy brought about by the change of government in Washington, Draghi also hit out at Trump’s moves to begin dismantling the Dodd-Frank Act. Rolling back the compendium of financial rules intended to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis would be “very worrisome,” he said.

“The last thing we need at this point in time is a relaxation in regulation,” Draghi said. “Frankly I don’t see any reason to relax the present regulatory stance which has produced a stronger banking and financial services industry than before the crisis.”

The euro was little changed as Draghi spoke, trading at $1.0727 at 4:31 p.m. in Frankfurt.

In introductory comments on ECB policy and the euro-area economy that largely echoed his press conference of Jan. 19, Draghi said current stimulus settings reflect a recovery that, while performing well, isn’t yet strong enough to stand on its own.

“Our December decisions” show “our growing confidence that the euro area’s economic prospects are firming up, ” the ECB president said. “At the same time, the lack of a clear sign of sustained convergence of inflation rates toward the desired level” is taken into account.

Even as inflation in the 19-nation euro area jumped around the turn of the year, reaching a close-to-target 1.8 percent in January, the ECB’s view is that current gains are largely driven by energy prices and don’t warrant a discussion about tightening monetary policy yet. The ECB will trim its bond-buying program to 60 billion euros ($64 billion) per month in April from 80 billion euros a month currently, and it intends at this stage to let it run at that pace until the end of the year.

As other policymakers have done, Draghi argued that while the euro-area economy is currently performing well – economic sentiment is at the highest in five years and unemployment is falling to single digits – it still isn’t strong enough to stand alone. Euro-area output has been “solid” in every quarter since 2015, Draghi said, averaging 1.9 percent in annualized terms.

“Support from our monetary policy measures is still needed if inflation rates are to converge toward our objective with sufficient confidence and in a sustained manner,” Draghi said. “Financing conditions have to remain supportive, taking remaining uncertainties inside and outside the euro area into account.”

New England Patriots QB Tom Brady #12 throws a pass against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL Super Bowl on Sunday, February 5, 2017 in Houston, TX. (AP Photo/Gregory Payan)

Gregory Payan

New England Patriots QB Tom Brady #12 throws a pass against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL Super Bowl on Sunday, February 5, 2017 in Houston, TX. (AP Photo/Gregory Payan)

Gregory Payan