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In a tweet last Friday, President Trump said that “China, the European Union and others have been manipulating their currencies and interest rates lower.”
This coupled with US interest rate rises was making the United States lose its competitive edge as the dollar strengthened, he added.
“Tightening now hurts all that we have done. The US should be allowed to recapture what was lost due to illegal currency manipulation,” Trump said in a separate tweet.
The dollar slumped in response to Trump’s comments with the index recently at 94.27 on Monday morning, down from as high as 95.29 last Friday and 95.66 on July 19, which was the highest since July 2017.
Stock declines across most of the SHFE base metals last week were also supportive to prices this morning. All of the base metals, bar lead, saw their stock levels decline in the week ended July 20.
Aluminium led on the upside with the light metal’s most-traded September contract on the SHFE trading at 14,235 yuan ($2,099) per tonne as 9.53am Shanghai time, up 180 yuan per tonne or 1.3% from last Friday’s close.
Aluminium stocks declined by 6,107 tonnes last week to stand at 911,548 tonnes as of last Friday.
Copper had a similarly strong performance this morning following a healthy decline in stock levels last week, while supply-side issues also provided red metal prices with a boost.
Labor talks at the world’s largest copper mine, Escondida, have frozen without signs of progress toward an agreement being struck, according to the union representing workers at the mine. The existing labor contract is set to expire at the end of July.
Last year, workers at Escondida initiated a strike that lasted 44 days, resulting in surging copper prices and BHP-owned Minera Escondida Ltd suffering a loss of $184 million. Base metals prices
Currency moves and data releases