President Donald Trump’s new 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada took effect, along with a doubling of duties on Chinese goods to 20%, at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT).
In response, China said it will impose additional tariffs of 10-15% on certain U.S. imports from March 10. Canada has said that retaliatory tariffs on the United States would take effect on Tuesday and Mexico is expected to follow suit.
Worries of a trade war and the hit to other countries’ economies might be expected to boost the U.S. dollar, but recent weak economic data has weighed on the currency and bond yields in the United States.
Concerns about duties on imports dominated commentary from manufacturers in the weak Institute for Supply Management survey on Monday, which continued a run of tepid data.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the currency against six peers, fell 0.54% to 105.96, its lowest since December. “While the U.S. is now broadening its tariff regime to Canada and Mexico, weak domestic U.S. activity… is preventing the dollar from strengthening on the tariff news,” said Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING. Investors flocked to traditional safe-haven currencies the Japanese yen and Swiss franc, which were both up almost 1%, as growth and tariff fears knocked global stocks on Tuesday.
The Canadian dollar was around 0.45% stronger at 1.4471 per U.S. dollar, having hit a one-month low of 1.4542 late on Monday as tariffs were confirmed.
The Mexican peso was last down roughly 0.3% at 20.76 per dollar, after earlier touching its lowest since February 3.
Analysts said many in the market were hoping tariffs might quickly be lifted if deals can be struck, much as the initial threat of levies against Canada and Mexico was halted in February.
“The size of initial moves lower for the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso has been relatively modest considering the scale of the tariffs that have been put in place,” said Lee Hardman, senior currency analyst at Japanese bank MUFG.
“The price action suggests that market participants remain hopeful that the tariff hikes won’t remain in place for long helping to limit trade and economic disruption.”
EURO, STERLING, YEN RALLY
The euro perked up, reflecting the lack of tariffs on the European Union and a sharp narrowing of the gap between U.S. and euro zone bond yields, which has made the dollar less attractive.
It climbed to its highest since December at $1.0547, up 0.5%.
Euro zone government bond yields have risen relative to those in the United States as Trump’s pullback from supporting Ukraine has stirred expectations of higher borrowing and spending on defence. Yields move inversely to prices.
Investors are also keeping an eye out for the European Central Bank policy meeting on Thursday, with traders pricing in another 25 basis-point cut.
U.S. 10-year Treasury yields fell to their lowest level since October on Tuesday at 4.115% as traders digested the weak data and tariff headlines.
Sterling rose to an 11-week high of $1.2744 as the dollar slipped and was last up 0.3%.
Trump said on Monday he told leaders of Japan and China they cannot continue to reduce the value of their currencies as doing so would be unfair to the United States.
The dollar fell 0.9% against the yen to 148.17, its lowest since October.
Speculators last week mounted their biggest ever wager that the yen will continue to rise as they position for further Bank of Japan interest rate hikes.
China’s yuan rose around 0.3% to 7.265 per dollar, aided by the central bank continuing a strengthening bias in its daily official guidance.
