Donald Trump keeps us guessing on China trade wars

28th August 2019

Written by OspreyFX News Team 

Donald Trump keeps us in the dark on China tariffs

US President Donald Trump never fails to disappoint with his bluster and rhetoric. After weeks of slapping tariffs on almost all Chinese goods, he now indicates that the Chinese want to talk and come to the table to discuss. Such statements have obviously influenced the major stock exchanges with fluctuations that range from 1 to 3 percentage points the order of the day.

Friday saw one of the biggest drops this year with the Dow Jones and S&P dropping by almost the same level of around 3 per cent. Cryptocurrency markets seemed relatively immune to these changes though with little movement across the board.

Is China really going to parley with the US?

After the Biarritz G7 theatrics, Trump announced that the Chinese wanted to go back to the negotiating table to discuss a compromise on the tariff issue. It is pretty obvious that China is hurting with these tariffs that have affected almost all exports to the US.

And after that news, the US indices promptly rose by about 1% in another bout of frenzied trading which saw most of the major stocks regain some of their losses. Interestingly though, Chinese foreign ministry officials denied that contact had taken place so it remains to be seen whether meetings will take place.

Will crypto get a jolt upwards with all these trade wars?

What does this mean to OspreyFX customers? Trump’s statements don’t seem to have moved the crypto market that much with most of the major altcoins down by around 2-4% over the weekend.

There has been talk that investors are moving more funds to Bitcoin as a safe haven to shield themselves from the volatility of the regular securities market but the world’s largest cryptocurrency remains pretty much at the same levels of the past two weeks at just over or just under the $10,000 mark. Will Trump’s rhetoric have an effect in the next weeks, we wonder.