WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday said China's devaluation of the yuan would be "devastating" for the United States. "They're just destroying us," the billionaire businessman, a long-time critic of China's currency policy, said in a CNN interview. "They keep devaluing their currency until they get it right. They're doing a big cut in the yuan, and that's going to be devastating for us."

Earlier on Tuesday, China devalued its currency following a series of poor economic data in the yuan's biggest fall since 1994. Some said this could signal a long-term slide in the exchange rate.

China has been a frequent theme for Trump since he entered the 2016 presidential campaign, promising to be a tougher negotiator with Beijing in order to bolster the US economy. "We have so much power over China," he told CNN.

"China has gotten rich off of us. China has rebuilt itself with the money it's sucked out of the United States and the jobs that it's sucked out of the United States."