© Reuters.
Investing.com – The u.s. dollar rose slightly in the beginning of the day on Monday, signs that the United States and China were on the point of concluding an agreement putting an end to a trade dispute of a duration of one year.
The Wall Street Journal announced on Sunday that Washington could lift the most or all of its tariffs on Beijing, while a summit between the american president Donald Trump and his chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for the signing of a commercial agreement final could be held later this month.
This was in response to the comments of Trump, last week, in which he had asked China to immediately remove all tariffs on us agricultural products, because trade negotiations were progressing well.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, was at 96,51 at 3: 45 pm ET (8: 45am GMT), its best level since 22 February.
Traders seem to have ignored the comments in the president Trump, who said this weekend that the restrictive monetary policy of the federal Reserve contributed to the strength of the dollar and the competitiveness of the United States.
“We have a man who loves a dollar very strong within the Fed … I want a strong dollar, but I want a dollar great for our country, not a dollar so strong that it would be prohibitive for us to deal with other nations “, he declared to his supporters in a speech.
Against the japanese yen, the dollar was a little higher at 111,93 ( USD / JPY), not far from the summit of 112,07 reached Friday.
The euro has dropped 0.3% to 1,1333 dollar ( EUR / USD), its lowest level since February 25. The markets are closely monitoring the meeting of the european central Bank on the monetary policy to be held later in the week.
Elsewhere, the pound has found support to allay fears that Britain leaves the european Union without an agreement, after the first minister Theresa May announced last week that lawmakers could vote on a report of a Brexit should they decide not to approve the withdrawal agreement.
The pound gained 0.2% to 1,3238 USD ( GBP / USD), approaching its highest for nearly eight months of 1,3351 $ reached last week.
– Reuters contributed to this report
