US Treasury Sec. Yellen: China trade deal has ‘hurt American consumers’ – NYT

In an interview with the New York Times (NYT) on Friday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed her concerns over the Sino-American trade deal, citing that some US tariffs hurt consumers.

Key quotes

“My own personal view is that tariffs were not put in place on China in a way that was very thoughtful.” 

“Tariffs are taxes on consumers. In some cases it seems to me what we did hurt American consumers, and the type of deal that the prior administration negotiated really didn’t address in many ways the fundamental problems we have with China.”

Contrarily, China’s Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Gao Feng last week, “the first phase of the agreement is good for China, good for the U.S., and good for the whole world.”

Market reaction

Yellen’s comments on the US-China trade deal have little to no impact on the market sentiment, is it remains weighed by the coronavirus concerns.

The US dollar index is testing multi-day highs near 92.75 while the S&P 500 futures shed 0.50% on the day. AUD/USD languishes in yearly lows near 0.7370.