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Trump expected to sign Hong Kong bill into law, various trade headlines weighs on risk sentiment

According to a note from Bloomberg, US President Trump is expected to sign the Hong Kong bill into law, according to someone familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, the US House approved a bill to bar export of many crowd-control munitions to the Hong Kong police, and sending the measure to Trump for signature or for veto. A bill to regularly review HK's special financial status is now also approved and will be sent to the White House for Trump to veto or sign as well. 

Update

Courtesy of CNBC's Beijing Bureau Chief:

  • China will double down on attacks of US Congress after House passed legislation supporting HK protesters post Senate bill. 
  • Trump said China wasn’t “stepping up” the way he wants in trade talks. But in Beijing, the Chinese feel US is the one that needs to make next move with tariff rollback - to show sincerity, make deal “balanced”, give Beijing face.

Earlier notes

Earlier Trump talking at the Apple factory said he thinks China is not stepping up to the plate and says China wants a deal more than he does. He also said, "We're looking at whether Apple should be exempt from China tariffs".

"If I didn't win, right now China would be a bigger economy than the United States. (The US economy was 60% larger than China when he was elected. To close the gap, the US economic drop would have had to be double the Great Depression and twice as fast),"

Trump said. In later trade, he most recently tweeted:

Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America. Today Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn’t care about American Workers!

FX implications

The yen has picked up a fresh bid in early Asia on the number of negative headlines related to the breakdown in US and Chinese relations. AUD/JPY in particular, as a proxy to trade sentiment, is already off by -0.25% at the time of writing. 

Author

Ross J Burland

Ross J Burland, born in England, UK, is a sportsman at heart. He played Rugby and Judo for his county, Kent and the South East of England Rugby team.

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