Yen Slumps a Third Day on Trump Tariff Uncertainty
The yen weakened for a third straight day against the dollar as fears mount that Japan may face tariffs on its exports to the US. A gauge of the greenback inched up before US inflation data..
USD/JPY rose as much as 0.7% to 153.53, the highest since Feb. 5. Tokyo asked US President Donald Trump to exclude Japanese firms from his fresh levies on steel and aluminum. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda told parliamentarians the central bank is closely watching the US measures, but it’s hard to discern their impact.
USD/JPY has climbed more than 1% this week amid yen sales from leveraged accounts on the possibility the petition for an exemption will be rejected, according to an Asia-based FX trader.
“Yen underperformance is likely due to reciprocal tariff uncertainty,” said Christopher Wong, a FX strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. “There is a genuine risk that Japan may be hit and this can complicate the near term outlook for yen”.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1% after Tuesday’s 0.3% drop.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday reiterated that there’s no urgency to cut interest rates further. The comments come ahead of US inflation data Wednesday.
Headline CPI is seen steady at 2.9% y/y while core measure which strips out food and energy prices expected to slow to 3.1% y/y, according to Bloomberg surveys.
AUD/USD edged 0.2% higher to 0.6308.
Australia is “killing” the US aluminum market, Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro said, complicating the nation’s efforts to secure a tariff exemption.
GBP/USD inched 0.1% higher to 1.2457.
EUR/USD edged up 0.1% to 1.0367.
Source : Bloomberg
