By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - President Donald Trump’s increasing souring on China is sending waves of delight through gold buyers who responded by sending the yellow to three-week highs on Thursday, pushing it deeper toward the mid-$1,700s.
“Gold is poised to climb higher as U.S.-China relations continue to head into a downward spiral,” Ed Moya, analyst at New York’s OANDA said in his daily commentary after Trump said he has no interest in speaking to his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping right now and might even cut ties with the world's second-largest economy.
U.S. gold futures for June settled up $24.50, or 1.4%, at $1,740.90. It hit a three-week high of $1,746.25 earlier.
Spot gold, which tracks real-time trades in bullion, rose $16.82, or 1%, to $1,733.34 by 4:00 PM ET (20:00 GMT), after a session peak at $1,746.25.
In an interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Thursday, Trump said he was very disappointed with China's failure to contain the disease and that the pandemic had cast a pall over his January trade deal with Beijing, which he has previously hailed as a major achievement.
"They should have never let this happen," Trump said. "So I make a great trade deal and now I say this doesn't feel the same to me. The ink was barely dry and the plague came over. And it doesn't feel the same to me."
Gold also rose after data from the U.S. Labor Department showed nearly 3 million more Americans filed for weekly unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total number of U.S. job losses from the coronavirus pandemic to around 36 million.