Futures are up today across most major market indices as traders expect a positive outcome for the meeting between President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping which will be held in South Korea later this week. President Trump was in Malaysia for the ASEAN Summit where he signed a peace agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, and a trade deal with Malaysia in which Malaysian products to the US are tariffed at 19%. He is now in Japan where he will then travel to South Korea.
Meanwhile, there has been no explanation or updates on the two crashes of US military aircraft in the “South China Sea”. A US Navy helicopter (MH-60R) and a F/A-18 Hornet fighter crashed within minutes of each other after taking off from the US aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz. The crashes took place 30 minutes apart, yesterday around 2.45PM local time.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent already held discussions in Malaysia with China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng and China’s top trade negotiator Li Chenggang. Both sides have said that preliminary talks have been productive and expect a good result from the meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping.
Yesterday, discussing the trade talks with China, Scott Bessent made the Willem Defoe meme when he said that he is somewhat a soy bean farmer himself. Scott Bessent is a successful hedge fund manager who owns up to $25 million in farmland, mostly of soybeans farms in North Dakota. China has effectively stopped buying US soybeans this year amid the tariff standoff. While President Trump raised China tariffs to 57.6% and later threatened 100%, that higher rate has not taken effect as negotiations continue. China’s retaliatory measures pushed the effective duty on US soybeans to roughly 34%, diverting demand to Brazil and Argentina.
Newsroom
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