German officials, concerned that Washington could be pushing the global economy into a downward spiral, have launched an unusually open critique of US economic policy and vowed to make their frustration known at this week's G-20 summit, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Leading the attack is Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, who said the US Federal Reserve's decision last week to pump an additional $600 billion into government securities will not help the US economy or its global partners.

The Fed's decisions are "undermining the credibility of US financial policy," Schauble said in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine published over the weekend, referring to the Fed's move, known as "quantitative easing," designed to spur demand and keep interest rates low. "It doesn't add up when the Americans accuse the Chinese of currency manipulation and then, with the help of their central bank's printing presses, artificially lower the value of the dollar."

At an economics conference in Berlin on Friday, Schauble said the Fed's action shows US policymakers are "at a loss about what to do."

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