Dollar Eases as Trump Sets Unilateral Tariff Date
The dollar weakened against all Group-of-10 peers after President Donald Trump said he plans to send letters to trading partners in the next one to two weeks setting unilateral tariff rates ahead of a July 9 deadline.
Euro, yen and swiss franc all rose about 0.2%, to lead gains over the dollar. US stock futures edged lower while the yield on 10-year Treasuries eased one basis point to 4.41%.
Traders saw only a muted bump in client flows given the president has previously set two-week deadlines for actions, only for them to come later or not at all.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2% after closing down 0.3% on Wednesday.
“We’re going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries, telling them what the deal is,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “At a certain point, we’re just going to send letters out. And I think you understand that, saying this is the deal, you can take it or leave it,” he added.
“Common sense would suggest this is another Trump strategy to increase urgency in trade negotiations — Trump wants trade deals and he wants them sooner rather than later”, said Rodrigo Catril, strategist at National Australia Bank in Sydney.
His latest comments may be part of plan to ramp up urgency in negotiations.
USD/JPY down 0.2% to 144.24; EUR/USD rose 0.2% to 1.1510.
Source : Bloomberg
