Who will emerge victorious in Sino-US trade war?

At the beginning of 2017, Donald Trump, President of United States tried to contain Beijing by restrictive economic policies. At the time, he stated that US$346 billion US trade deficit was due to imbalanced trade with China. In year 2019, this deficit has reached US$419 billion, which shows well that Trump's economic policies toward Beijing are not yielding positive results.

China's stoppage of US agricultural products and imposition of reciprocal tariffs on American products indicate that this Asian economic super power does not intend to surrender to the US. In such circumstances, there will be no opportunity for President Trump and his companions to maneuver. Many US economic and policy analysts believe that in year 2020, China can hurt Trump in the re-election. It is already evident that China has become a symbol of America's economic and political failure in the world.

Lately, Bloomberg has reported that the ups and downs of asset prices on any given day are being determined, more and more, by the words and actions of three men. First, of course, is Donald Trump, who has rediscovered his power to send markets soaring—or into a tailspin—with less than 280 characters on Twitter. Then there’s U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who repeatedly finds himself on the receiving end of nasty Trump tweets for abiding by his mandate to do what’s best for the U.S. economy, which isn’t necessarily always the same thing as what’s best for Trumph. And in Beijing, it’s Xi Jinping, the president of China who sits atop a Communist Party in which politicians and central bankers famously sing from the same hymnal, at least when the audience is outside observers.

With each of these collisions, the fragility of the global economy and markets is exposed. It seems increasingly possible that something big and important is broken. Investors who’d believed Sino-U.S. relations were stabilizing, if not improving, were caught on the wrong foot when tensions abruptly escalated. The prevailing assumption that President Trump won’t allow the trade war to continue through the 2020 presidential campaign season is being reconsidered, as the two sides appear further apart than ever. Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., no longer expect a trade agreement before the election and see the Fed cutting its benchmark interest rate two more times this year in an effort to counteract the economic damage that will be done by the impasse.

A question being openly debated on Wall Street is whether lower borrowing costs will be enough to fend off a recession. There signs that economic activities in the United States are shrinking. In Europe, whose factories are caught in the crossfire between China and the US, manufacturing barometers already point toward recession. Trade war being converted into currency war—in which countries race to devalue to get a competitive edge for their exports.

Other disturbing signs are could US sell F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan? Is Washington supporting anti-Beijing protesters who’ve paralyzed Hong Kong this summer? And what could be at risk among more than a quarter of a trillion dollars of US investments in China since 1990?

All these questions are arising at a time when Wall Street’s vacation calendars are jammed and markets seem especially easy to rattle. Evidences of stock market volatility rose in August, some of the ugliest collapses in equities market over the past decade have occurred in this month.

The recent rush into safe havens sent gold to a five-year high and triggered a rally in Treasuries that pushed 10-year yields to their lowest since Trump was elected in 2016. At the same time, rates on three-month Treasury bills were higher than those on 10-year bonds—a phenomenon known as a yield-curve inversion that’s widely considered a reliable warning of an impending recession. The lower long-term yields signal that markets expect interest rates to come down in response to weak economic growth.

With each of these collisions, the fragility of the global economy and markets is exposed. It seems increasingly evident that something big and important is broken. Investors who’d believed Sino-US relations were stabilizing, if not improving, were caught on the wrong foot when tensions abruptly escalated.

The prevailing assumption that President Trump won’t allow the trade war to continue through the 2020 presidential campaign season is being reconsidered, as the two sides appear further apart than ever. Economists at Goldman Sachs Group no longer expect a trade agreement before the election and see the Fed cutting its benchmark interest rate two more times this year in an effort to counteract the economic damage that will be done by the impasse.

 According to a CNBC report, a trade war with China hasn’t tarnished his image as a champion for an unlikely group: farmers and ranchers. Farmers are one of the most visible casualties of the Sino-US trade war, which escalated sharply lately as both sides landed blows that could hold potentially devastating consequences for US agriculture, yet they appear to be sticking by Trump. More than 75% of farmers had voted for Trump in his successful campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are still sticking by him because they consider Trump a better option as compared to those running presidential race.

Iraq Iran considering removing US currency from bilateral trade

Iraqi Ambassador to Iran Sa’d Javad Qandil has lately said that his country and Iran are considering mechanisms to use local currencies in their bilateral trade to reduce reliance on the currency of United States. The two neighbors are holding talks to find the best way to facilitate their financial transactions, the ambassador noted.

The Iraqi diplomat once again reiterated his government's clear stance against the unilateral sanctions imposed by United States on Iran, saying that such restrictions are against the international rules and regulations. Noting that the bilateral trades between Iran and Iraq have not been affected by the sanctions, Qandil expressed his country's readiness to increase the level of cooperation with Iran in various economic spheres.

Iraq is currently Iran’s biggest trade partner and the two countries have been taking significant steps to improve their mutual trade over the past few years. In early February this year, central banks of Iran and Iraq reached an agreement to set up a payment mechanism to facilitate banking ties and boost trade between the two countries.

In the meeting, Governor of central bank of Iran, Abdolnasser Hemmati, who visited Iraq to discuss expansion of banking relations, expressed hope that the trade volume between the two neighboring countries would increase even more.

In early May, officials from the two countries held a meeting in Tehran to discuss establishing an Iran-Iraq trade committee.

According to Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), the two sides discussed several issues including joint investment and establishment of industrial zones, facilitating the transit of goods, facilitating business travels, organizing pilgrimage and health tourism, as well as solving the existing problems regarding mutual trade.

Iran’s exports to Iraq have increased by 37% in the last Iranian calendar year and the two neighbors have it on agenda to boost their mutual trade to $20 billion by 2021.

Is US Federal Reserve losing control of gold price?

The price of physical gold has lately surpassed US$1,510/oz and likely to remain on upward trajectory in the near future. Efforts are often made to bring the price of precious metal driven down, but it recovers quickly and moves on up. Analysts either don’t have any plausible explanation or are too afraid to talk the truth.

It is not a secret that many central banks around the world have been converting their dollar reserves into gold, which reduces the demand for dollars and increases the demand for gold.  Existing stocks of gold available to fill orders are being drawn down and mining output is not keeping pace with the rise in demand, perhaps this could be one of the explanations for the rise in gold price.

During the many years of Quantitative Easing the exchange value of the dollar was protected by the Japanese, British and EU central banks, also by printing money to insure that their currencies did not rise in value relative to the dollar. The U.S. Federal Reserve needs to protect dollar’s value so that it continues to play its role as the world’s reserve currency in which international transactions are conducted.

If the dollar loses this role, the US will lose the ability to pay its bills by printing dollars.  Dollar decline in value relative to other countries would cause flight from the dollar to the rising currencies. Catastrophe quickly occurs from increasing the supply of a currency that central banks are unwilling to hold.

The dollar has been depreciating relative to gold.  Rigging the currency market was necessary but not sufficient to stabilize the dollar’s value. The gold market also had to be rigged. To stop the dollar’s depreciation, naked short selling has been used to artificially increase the supply of paper gold in order to suppress the price. 

Unlike equities, gold shorts don’t have to be covered. This turns the price-setting gold futures market into a paper market where contracts are settled primarily in cash and not by taking delivery of gold.  Therefore, participants can increase the supply of the paper gold traded in the futures market by printing new contracts. When large numbers of contracts are suddenly dumped in the market, the sudden increase in paper gold supply drives down the price, this seems to be happening now.

If flight from the dollar is beginning, it will make it difficult for the Fed to accommodate the growing US budget deficit and continue its policy of lowering interest rates. With central banks moving their reserves from dollars (US Treasury bonds and bills) to gold, the demand for US government debt is not keeping up with supply.  The supply will be increasing due to the US$1.5 trillion US budget deficit. 

The Fed will have to take up the gap between the amount of new debt that has to be issued and the amount that can be sold by purchasing the difference.  In other words, the Fed will print more money with which to purchase the unsold portion of the new debt.  

The creation of more dollars when the dollar is experiencing pressure puts more downward pressure the currency.  To protect the dollar or make it attractive to investors and central banks, the Fed would have to raise interest rates substantially.  If the US economy is in recession or moving toward recession, the cost of rising interest rates would be high in terms of unemployment.  

With a rising price of gold, who would want to hold debt denominated in a rapidly depreciating currency when interest rates are low, zero, or negative?

The Fed faces an impending crisis that it has set up for itself. It is being said that the Fed is accountable to the elites who want to rid themselves of President Donald Trump.  Collapsing the economy on Trump’s head is one way to prevent his reelection.

Why Trump Can't Afford to Intervene in the Dollar Affairs

Volatility wise, Thursday was a relatively quiet day in the forex market. USD/JPY extended its losses but the greenback recovered against euro, sterling and other major currencies. The rallies in the Australian and New Zealand dollars were the strongest with both currencies experiencing their biggest one-day rally in 3 weeks against USD. While there were no US economic reports released, the rebound in stocks supported the steadier price action. Better than expected Chinese trade also helped fuel the recovery in AUD and NZD.

The big story of the day was President Trump's comments on USD. In a series of tweets, he said, "As your President, one would think that I would be thrilled with our very strong dollar. I am not! The Fed's high interest rate level, in comparison to other countries, is keeping the dollar high, making it more difficult for our great manufacturers like Caterpillar, Boeing, John Deere, our car companies, & others, to compete on a level playing field. With substantial Fed Cuts (there is no inflation) and no quantitative tightening, the dollar will make it possible for our companies to win against any competition. We have the greatest companies in the world, there is nobody even close, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about our Federal Reserve. They have called it wrong at every step of the way, and we are still winning. Can you imagine what would happen if they actually called it right?"

Investors are worried that by expressing a preference for a weaker dollar, President Trump is hinting that he could order the Treasury to intervene in the currency. This would be similar to his actions last week where he called China a currency manipulator on twitter and a day later, the Treasury made the label official. Could President Trump devalue the dollar? Certainly. Just last month he said he "could do that in two seconds if I wanted," but any intervention could backfire.

President Trump will argue that by devaluing the dollar, he's making US exporters cheaper and foreign profits of American companies more valuable in USD terms.

But dollar intervention is a bad idea because it drives up prices, creates more volatility in the markets and makes the Fed's job more difficult. If Trump's primary goal is to pressure the Fed to cut interest rates further, he's accomplished that by escalating the trade war with China. Markets collapsed, global growth will slow and investors are looking for two more rate cuts this year.

If Trump devalues USD, stronger foreign profits could be offset by lower stock valuations and weaker demand at home.

Also intervention rarely works if it is not coordinated with the central bank. If the Fed sterilizes the intervention, the impact could be limited. If stocks crash, investors will flock to the safety of US dollars anyway.

If intervention move is aimed at leveling the playing field with China, the US can't afford to intervene because China has deeper pockets. The Chinese government has $3 trillion in reserves to prevent the currency from weakening. US intervention on the other hand is funded by the Exchange Stabilization Fund, which has a buying power of USD 100 billion. Trump could allocate more funds but that would require the approval of Congress.

Judging from the price action in the dollar today and the move in US stocks, investors are not worried about intervention risk. They feel that the chance is low because it is unprecedented and dangerous but Trump likes to buck convention and could find ways to push this through.