US President Donald Trump’s latest response to levy a further tariff on a further $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, has created widespread fears of an imminent trade war. The escalation between Washington DC and Beijing’s tit-for-tat tariff war has been triggering widespread uncertainty throughout both nation’s financial markets, with the Nasdaq COMP index, S&P-500, Shanghai Composite and Nikkei 225 index all suffering losses today.
“The trade relationship between the United States and China must be much more equitable,” President Trump said. “The United States will no longer be taken advantage of on trade by China and other countries in the world.”
This political posturing sparked off last week when President Trump decidedly slapped a trade tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, in a bid to compensate the United States for what he believed to be years of alleged Chinese intellectual property theft. The far east responded in kind and threatened to place a like-for-like tariff on all US imports into China unless the new punitive tariff was removed. In an attempt to strong arm the opposition, President Trump fought back by asking U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer, to draw up a list of $200 billion worth of Chinese products that they can attach a further tariff to, including an additional $200 billion worth if China retaliates.
Overall the potential tariff charges could hit $450 billion worth of Chinese products entering into the US, which is likely to spill over into the working classes and create havoc for the citizens of both economies.
Meanwhile amidst this trade war, the geo-political unrest has directed a surge of capital back into the global crypto market, as individuals on both sides of the pacific withdraw into decentralized virtual assets to protect their interests. The global market capital has enjoyed a $16 billion increase in the last 24hrs and is looking promising to retrace back towards $300 billion, as US and Chinese stock market FUD increases.
On the Bitfinex exchange, BTC/USD trading pair is currently accounting for nearly 5% of all Bitcoin trades today, as investors buy into BTC to hedge against the falling US dollar market.
It’s likely that as this war continues between the two superpowers, smart investors will seek to leverage this opportunity to make profits; taking advantage of fact that both the traditional financial market and the crypto market operate on completely separately plains. This means that the crypto market could continue to improve as tensions rise and international trade concerns deepen, lifting the digital assets out of a long bearish period.
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