(Washington)

The US and China ended two days of trade war negotiations yesterday, and apparently there was little progress. Both sides pressed ahead with enforcing $16 bn of further tariffs on one another. The deputy White House Press Secretary commented at the end of the negotiations that the two countries “exchanged views on how to achieve fairness, balance and reciprocity in the economic relationship”, but made no mention of any material progress being made. One senior Trump administration official added “in order to get a positive result out of these engagements, it’s really critical that they address the fundamental concerns that we have raised. We haven’t seen that yet”.

FINSUM: While the market seemed very hopeful about these talks, the trade battle with China looks likely to keep going for a while yet as the issue seems to be quite intractable.