MOST Asian currencies inched lower on Tuesday as investors turned a little wary ahead of the next round of trade talks between the United States and China.
The talks in Washington begin on Tuesday, and in the same pattern as last week's negotiations in Beijing, will be joined later by top-level officials.
Though regional markets have rallied over the past few days on hopes about a trade deal between the world's two biggest economies, very few details have emerged so far from the talks.
"Certainly the US-China trade issue is still the elephant in the room," said Jingyi Pan, a Singapore-based market strategist at financial services firm IG, adding there are reasons to be cautious as talks resume.
"The focus of 'needed structural changes in China' as highlighted by White House officials illustrates some of the hurdles that could be difficult for the parties to overcome."
U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in imports from China are set to rise to 25 percent from 10 percent if no deal is reached by March 1.
"There is now a vast amount of 'optimism' baked into currency, stock and energy market prices globally and precisely zero concrete detail," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA said in a note.
"The unwind, should no deal be struck, could be very ugly."
Optimism on trade also was dented by tensions between the United States and Europe.
A confidential U.S. Commerce Department report sent to Trump is widely expected to clear the way for him to threaten tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported autos and auto parts.
United States tariffs on imports of European cars could mean that Europe would buy less soybeans and liquefied natural gas from the U.S., the head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said on Monday.
"The market is nervous about more trade frictions, following tensions between the US and the EU over possible auto tariffs. Asia is as a region more export dependent so will generally react badly to any negative trade news," said Amy Yuan Zhuang, chief Asia analyst at Nordea.
Asian currencies that are more sensitive to trade such as the South Korean won and the Chinese yuan, led the regional losers on Tuesday.
Higher crude prices undermined the currencies of major oil importers such as the Indonesian rupiah and the Philippine peso.
Indian and Thai markets were closed for holidays. - Reuters
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