Gold Prices Rise; All Eyes on Sino-U.S. Talks Later This Week
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Investing.com - Prices of the safe-haven gold rose on Wednesday in Asia as risk sentiment took another hit after the U.S. confirmed it would hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Gold futures for June delivery, traded on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, were up 0.2% at $1,287.55 per ounce.
The precious metal attracted some safe-haven bids today after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed that the U.S. will increase levies on Chinese imports on Friday.
That came after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to hike tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports over the weekend, as well as levy new duties on hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of other imports.
Some analysts still expect a deal to be reached at some point, but they are also concerned the increase in tariffs on Chinese imports could hurt global economic outlook and aggravate tensions between the U.S. and China, delaying the time required to strike a deal.
Negotiators including Lighthizer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and China Vice Premier Liu He are scheduled to meet on Thursday and Friday, but the announcement by the U.S. that it is raising the tariffs on Chinese imports makes a deal very unlikely to be agreed this week, analysts said.
The turn of events came unexpectedly, as multiple newswires that cited industry sources said earlier that a deal is close after weeks of positive commentary from Chinese and U.S. officials. Mnuchin even said negotiations were in the “final laps.”
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