Asian stock markets remained mostly in the red on Tuesday afternoon as traders remained apprehensive about the trade war that appears to be heating up between the U.S. and China. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that it’s “too soon” for Washington to begin working on a deal with Beijing, with his comments hinting that the force of the current tariffs hasn’t yet pushed Beijing into submitting to U.S. trade demands. Trump’s comments, though largely focused on his recent deal with Canada and Mexico, extolled the virtues of triffs as a means of getting international attention and getting his trade ‘partners’ to kowtow to his demands.
In what some traders are interpreting as a spillover from soured trade negotiations, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis as cancelled the trip to China that was scheduled for October.
At the moment China has refused to bend to any pressure from the U.S. and has promised to support its country’s economy from within if it cannot be done with help from the U.S. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index plummeted 1.61 percent as of 1:21 p.m. HK/SIN, South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.86 percent and Australia’s ASX 200 was down 0.69 percent. Only Japan’s Nikkei 225 bucked the trend, climbing 0.48 percent higher. The losses came after Wall Street’s major indexes closed mostly higher. China’s markets are closed all week for public holidays.
Currency Movements
The dollar was higher against its primary trading partners, with the dollar index gaining 011 percent in the early Asian afternoon to trade at 95.41 .DXY. The greenback was flat against the yen, while gaining against the British pound, the euro and the Canadian dollar.