The moves emerged within days of Trump’s threat to impose additional tariffs on China and struck at the heart of two of the US president’s fiercest criticisms – that Beijing manages its currency unfairly to help exporters and has failed to keep promises to boost purchases of US crops after a trade truce in June. Investors responded by dumping Asian stocks and currencies in favour of haven assets including the Japanese yen, US Treasuries and gold.
(Aug 5): After trying to placate Donald Trump for more than a year only to face tariffs on virtually all its shipments to the US, China is signalling it’s ready to play hardball.
In a stark escalation of the trade war that has roiled financial markets and weighed on economic growth worldwide, Beijing allowed the yuan to tumble to its weakest level in a decade against the dollar and asked state-owned companies to suspend imports of US agricultural products.
