Gold maintains its luster amid Trump’s commercial threats

Gold prices recorded a little in early Thursday’s trading, hovering near their highest levels ever, amid continuing concerns about the customs duties strategies adopted by US President Donald Trump, which may exacerbate inflation and ignite a global trade war.

Prices update

Gold rose in instant transactions 0.2 percent to $ 2938.57 an ounce by 0027 GMT. Gold recorded a record high yesterday, Wednesday, at $ 2946.85.

US gold futures increased 0.7 percent to $ 2955.20, according to Reuters data.

Trump imposed ten percent tariffs on Chinese imports and 25 percent on steel and aluminum earlier this month. Moreover, he recently said that he intends to impose customs duties on cars “within 25 percent” along with similar fees on semiconductor imports and medicines.

A report of the latest policy meeting of the Federal Reserve (the US Central Bank), which published on Wednesday, showed that the initial procedures proposed by Trump have sparked concern about high inflation and supported the continued temporary stoppage to reduce interest rates.

The US Central Central remained standard interest rates in the range of 4.25 percent – 4.50 percent at its meeting last month. Officials have since confirmed that they are not in a hurry to reduce interest rates again until they become more certain that inflation will decrease towards the target rate at two percent.

Gold is usually seen as a way to hedge against inflation and in times of geopolitical risks, but high interest rates reduce the attractiveness of assets that do not cause returns.

As for other precious metals, silver settled in instant transactions at $ 32.71 an ounce, and platinum fell 0.2 percent to 969.70 dollars, while palladium settled at $ 968.38.