Over the weekend: Trade tensions back on the rise, Brexit set for another lap

Over the weekend, risk-of headlines began to once again leak out of the market headline machines, and the market's Monday open could see riskier assets trading into the low end as Asia trade tensions remain peaked, while the ongoing Brexit process has unraveled to the point that the UK may be finding itself a new Prime Minister.

Key highlights

The US' Vice President Mike Pence reaffirmed over the weekend that America has no intention of changing course on China until China makes massive, structural changes to their economy, with VP Pence bringing additional criticism of China's Belt-and-Road infrastructure policies. The US is slated to "more than double" current tariffs on China, lifting the targeted tariff rate to 25% across the board.

Elsewhere in the Sino region, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) wrapped up its latest forum held in Papua New Guinea late on Friday, and a lack of consensus amongst the Pacific leaders sees APEC failing to ratify and complete a leadership communique as members failed to come to a group agreement on future progress on multilateral trade terms, and Zhang Shaogang, the director-general of the international division of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce stated that a "chairman's statement" will instead be issued by Papua New Guinea's Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato.

 Over in the UK, the number of letters calling for a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Theresa May continues to rise, and PM May is warning that a formal leadership contest this late in the game will "delay Brexit". With 20 of the 48 letters required already confirmed, and more on the way, a no-confidence vote could be seen as early as Monday, and according to various sources, PM May's chances of winning an inter-parliamentary vote are looking "bleak", and unnamed sources are warning that officials at Downing Street are contemplating a "kamikaze strategy" that would see PM May encouraging a financial market crash should she lose a first-round vote in an effort to galvanize support for a second-round vote, and the hefty if unverified accusations will do little to provide support for the GBP heading into the new week.

Elsewhere on the Brexit docket, the EU's lead Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, floated the idea over the weekend of pushing out the final Brexit date to December of 2022 with the UK spinning its wheels in the dirt and making little progress, a move that would surely draw even further anger from pro-leavers within the Tories' Brexiteer ranks. On the other side of that same coin, EU leaders have affirmed that, despite the struggles facing PM May within her own parliament, European leaders in Brussels warned they have no interest in reopening the current withdrawal agreement for further discussion, limiting PM May's movement options going forward.