Investing.com - The safe-haven Japanese yen rose agains the U.S. dollar after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would add tariffs on more Chinese goods.
Overnight, Trump announced in a tweet that he is imposing an additional 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports beginning on Sept 1.
The President said the threat resulted from a failure by China to buy more agricultural goods from the U.S. The tariff threat was also a reflection of the Trump Administration's frustration with China's lack of urgency in cutting a trade deal.
The move came one day after officials from Washington and Beijing wrapped up the latest round of trade talks. No visible progress was reported following this week’s negotiations.
The announcement sent global stocks lower, while safe-haven assets like gold and the Japanese yen benefited.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies inched up 0.1% to 98.218.
On Thursday, the Federal Reserve delivered its first rate cut in over a decade amid weaker growth, but indicated that it was not the start of a new easing cycle.
The greenback earlier reached as high as 98.665 following the Fed’s announcement.
The GBP/USD pair fell 0.3% after the Bank of England kept rates steady. The bank voted unanimously to keep the rate at 0.75%, as expected, but downgraded its projections for growth for the next two years.
The BoE did not warn against a no-deal Brexit scenario, but did say that "companies expect output, employment and investment to be much lower in a no-deal Brexit."
The AUD/USD pair inched up 0.1%, but the NZD/USD pair fell 0.3%.