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Fox Business’ Charlie Gasparino reports:

Japanese negotiators are complaining that the problem with the trade negotiations with the White House, what’s delaying concrete progress and a real deal, is that US keeps changing its ask in terms of exactly what it wants, said one financial CEO who speaks regularly to country officials. Maybe it’s a negotiating tactic. But the lack of publicly announced deal progress is depressing the dollar, spiking bond yields and leading to a flight to quality to gold and now Bitcoin.

Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense and veteran diplomat Chas Freeman also relayed a similar story on YouTube:

The Japanese have just been in Washington. Their experience apparently was they went to talk to the American leadership on this matter, and the American leadership said ‘what are you offering?’ And the Japanese said ‘well, what is it that you want?’ And the Americans could not explain what they wanted.’

The Art of the Deal, evidently. If I’m one of those countries, I would make a whole bunch of promises that sound good in a headline, like buying fighter planes and whatnot … then just not do those things. You’re probably only going to have to leg it out until the mid-terms.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

It’s another ugly day in the market today and tariffs are the main reason why. We haven’t heard anything that would lead us to believe this is going to be resolved any time soon but

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

USDCHF spent last week consolidating after a sustained move lower that pushed the pair to its lowest level since 2011. The sideways action formed a support floor between 0.8098 and 0.81288, while allowing the falling 100-hour moving average to catch up to price.

On Thursday, the pair briefly moved above the 100-hour MA but failed to break above earlier swing highs from earlier in the week. By late Friday, the price had fallen back below the 100-hour moving average, shifting the short-term bias firmly back to the downside.

That downside momentum continued into today’s session, with the pair breaking below the April 11 low at 0.80987 and holding below that level since. With USDCHF now trading at fresh multi-year lows and little historical support in view, the path of least resistance remains to the downside—unless buyers can start reclaiming key topside levels.

To shift the bias, buyers would need to:

• First, reclaim the April 11 low at 0.80987

• Then, push above the swing area high at 0.81288

• Next, test the 100-hour moving average at 0.81576

• And finally, challenge the 200-hour moving average at 0.82119

Clearing these resistance levels one by one would build confidence for buyers and put sellers on notice. Until then, with the pair below the prior low and no strong downside targets nearby, sellers remain in firm control in both the short- medium-term.and long-term control.

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.

This was a funny tweet from Trump late yesterday in light of the $100 rally in gold today to a record high but it underscores part of the US negotiating strategy worth dwelling on.

Yes, we know the US is much richer than China and that may or may not be a problem for China, which I think can tolerate much more pain than the US.

Where it may be more important is in the rest of the world. Part of the US negotiating strategy appears to be an appeal to trading partners that they need to block out China from trade in some way in order to get relief from tariffs. It’s a something of a re-making of the Trans Pacific Partnership that Trump derided in his campaign against Hilary Clinton.

Meanwhile, China is on a charm offensive to try and shore up alliances, particularly in Asia. Today we learned that China isn’t just planning to use charm though as a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that:

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of
China’s interests. If this happens, China will not accept it and will
resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures.”

That could be seen as a threat.

In a worst-case scenario there is a scramble for every country to join one sphere of influence. That would put many countries in a bind as they would rather trade with both. Given US relationships and military might, most countries would be inclined to trade with the US but Trump’s antagonism and bullying could make that a hard sell domestically.

It’s really hard to say how this will play out and Trump’s frequent policy and messaging switches make it nearly impossible to game out.

This gave me a chuckle:

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.