Investing.com - Gold prices rose on Friday in Asia as the U.S. hiked tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, deepening conflict with China and cast a shadow over global economic outlook.
Gold futures for June delivery, traded on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, were up 0.2% to $1,287.25 by 12:53 AM ET (04:53 GMT).
The additional tariffs kicked in at 12:01AM Washington time. Tariffs has now rise to 25% from the previous 10% on more than 5,700 different product categories from China.China immediately said in a statement that it is “forced to retaliate”, but did not provide any details
Top U.S. and Chinese negotiators including Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ended the first of two days of discussions in Washington and were expected to resume talks on Friday.
The talks have so far made little progress, with the mood around them downbeat, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the talks.
Investor sentiment was already down when Trump said on Wednesday that China “broke the deal” in trade talks with Washington.
But Trump walked back his rhetoric some overnight, saying that a deal with China was still possible this week and that he had received a "beautiful" letter from China Premier Xi Jinping.
Gold's rival, the dollar, traded flat. The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies was unchanged at 97.159