Investing.com - Asian markets fell in morning trade on Wednesday amid trade worries as White House trader advisor Peter Navarro said a potential trade deal between the U.S. and China is still a ways off.
China’s Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component were down 0.7% and 0.9% respectively by 11:30 PM ET (03:30 GMT).
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.3%.
“We had a deal that was over 150 pages long with seven different chapters” at the time the negotiations flamed out, Navarro told CNBC in an interview. “This will take time, and we want to get it right,” he added.
At the G-20 summit over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to restart talks and hold off new tariffs on each other’s goods.
Trump vowed to ease a ban on Huawei and allowed U.S. companies to sell products to the Chinese tech giant. However, citing an unnamed senior U.S official, Reuters reported today that the U.S. Commerce Department’s enforcement staff was told to still treat Huawei as blacklisted.
According to the report, industry players and government officials were confused by Trump’s comment on the weekend and struggled to understand how to treat Huawei.
On the data front, the Caixin/Markit services purchasing managers’ index fell to 52.0 in June, down from May’s 52.7.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.7% amid a stronger yen. The Japanese currency received some support after the Bank of Japan made small tweaks to its bond-buying program.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.9%. Index heavyweight Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KS:005930) made headlines after Bloomberg cited industry sources and said the smartphone maker has completed a two-month redesign of its Galaxy Fold and is now ready to debut its marquee foldable device.
Down under, Australia’s ASX gained 0.5%.