Trade offensive is costly, but will end beautifully: Trump

Jitters about US tariffs hammered stocks and the dollar again on Friday as President Donald Trump acknowledged the costs from his rollercoaster trade offensive but predicted a “beautiful” ending.

- 

After Trump relented on many tariffs but upped the ante on China, gold rose as discom-bobulated investors fled to safer assets, while warning lights kept flashing in bond markets and oil fell on recession fears.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first public remarks on Trump's tariffs, telling Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Beijing that China and the European Union should 'jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying.” Xi warned that Trump's tariffs will 'isolate' the US from the international community. “There are no winners in a trade war, and going against the world will only lead to self-isolation,” Xi Jinping told state broadcaster CCTV. China blasted President Donald Trump's tariffs on Friday as a 'numbers game' that 'will become a joke,' as Beijing raised reciprocal levies on US imports to 125 per cent and said it would go no further.

Washington's duties on Chinese products have 'become a numbers game with no practical significance in economics', a spokesperson for Beijing's commerce ministry said. 'It will only further expose the United States's... bullying and coercion. It will become a joke.”