The dollar remains stable in the face of fears related to US tariffs, Brexit hopes to boost the pound

LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar remained steady on Thursday as US President Donald Trump worried more and more of the imposition of tariffs on Chinese imports.

Trump could impose taxes on $ 200 billion more Chinese imports on Thursday when a public comment period on new tariffs will end.

This would probably support the dollar, which has become the main haven for investors seeking shelter from a US-China trade conflict.

The greenback's gains on Thursday, however, were moderate and at 8:00 am GMT traded at 95.110 overall.

Traders have said that this was due to gains made by the pound sterling and the euro after Bloomberg announced Wednesday that Germany would accept a less detailed deal on Britain's future relations with the EU to get a Brexit agreement.

The pound gave up some of its gains after Germany said its position on the Brexit had not changed and that Thursday the pound had traded up 0.1% to 1.2923 dollar .

"The dollar continues to face the residual pressure of the growing pound in the midst of recent Brexit speculation. It remains to be seen how long this could last, but for the time being it encourages us to buy other European currencies such as the euro and the Swiss franc, "said Takuya Kanda, managing director of Gaitame.com Research.

PRESSED SWEDISH CROWN

In addition, the Swedish krona fell 0.7% against the euro after the Swedish central bank kept its rates unchanged.

The Swedish currency fell last week to its lowest level in nine years against the euro, fearing an imminent election and growing investor conviction that interest rates may not increase until 2019.

The crown has weakened more than any other developed world currency this year, down 12% against the dollar. The Swedish central bank is expected to be one of the last to end stimulus measures taken since the 2008 financial crisis.

"The crown may find it difficult to rally even though the Riksbank continues to indicate that a rate hike will occur later this year," said Kit Juckes, head of global FX strategy at Société Générale.

"There are buyers of the currency before the election this weekend, under the pretext that the vote will not change the underlying support of a surplus of nearly 4% of the current account. .

Unlike the Riksbank and other European central banks, the US Federal Reserve has been increasing its borrowing costs steadily since the end of 2015, supporting the dollar.

The greenback's more than 6% rise against rivals in the last six months has hit emerging market currencies hard.

An index of emerging market currencies is trading at a one-year low, fearing that these currencies will be affected by the global trade conflict as it negatively affects their export-oriented economies.

The Argentine peso, which lost more than 50% of its value this year, had a rare break in overnight losses.

Argentina's Economy Minister Nicolas Dujovne said on Tuesday that an agreement to disburse early disbursements of a $ 50 billion loan agreement with the IMF could be handed over to his council by the end of the month.

The Argentine peso closed Wednesday at more than 1% to 38.52 dollars.

Elsewhere, the Australian dollar was 0.15% lower at $ 0.7185.

As the day before, when gross domestic product data did not increase much, Thursday's economic indicators failed to support the Aussie.