Oil Prices Fall amidst Escalating Trade Jitters

Investing.com – Oil prices slipped on Tuesday morning in Asia as the U.S. vowed to impose 10% tariffs on a further $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on Monday, which rattled the markets.

for November delivery dropped 0.45% to $68.37 a barrel at 10:47PM ET (02:47 GMT), while for November delivery also went down 0.63% to $77.56 per barrel.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Monday that Washington would slap 10% tariffs on another $200 billion Chinese imports, except smart watches from Apple (NASDAQ:) and Fitbit and other consumer products including bicycle helmets and baby car seats.

Trump also said in the statement that if China plans to retaliate, “we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports.”

Earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose levies on virtually all Chinese imports, which Beijing vowed to retaliate, before reports revealed U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin invited Chinese officials for trade talks to de-escalate tensions.

“The growing trade dispute has hurt trading sentiment. The impact on economic growth is slowly dripping in, which again hurts oil prices,” said Wang Xiao, head of crude research at Guotai Junan Futures.

On the supply side, ahead of the U.S. crude sanctions against Iran in November, the oil producer has decreased its export loadings by 580,000 barrels per day in the past three months, according to analysts at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch (NYSE:).

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Monday that the country’s oil output from its seven major hale formations is expected to rise by 79,000 per day to 7.6 million bpd next month.

Russia’s energy minister, Alexander Novak, said on Monday that the country is ready to cooperate with the U.S. to balance the oil market, after the two had a meeting last week to talk about boosting oil output to offset the shortfall from Iran.

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