Rand remains weaker as US-China trade tension casts a shadow on risk assets
The rand was still weaker on Monday afternoon, oscillating around the R15 to the dollar mark, as global trade tension weighed on sentiment."It certainly looks [as though] the wind that has been in the rand’s sails for the past week has suddenly died down," TreasuryOne senior currency dealer Andre Botha said in an e-mailed note to clients.The fresh slide in the rand came amid speculation that US President Donald Trump is poised to impose another round of tariffs on Chinese goods, upping the ante in the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.The US president is reportedly ready to slap tariffs on a further $200bn worth of Chinese goods, in a move that is expected to trigger a retaliation from China.Earlier in 2018, both countries imposed tariffs on $50bn worth of each other’s goods, raising concern about the potential effect on the global economy.The weaker rand environment has raised the spectre of higher inflation, coming at the time when the economy is contracting....
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