World Events Summary: 7th-13th July 2018

Trade War: Trump's response to Chinese retaliation over U.S. tariffs was to threaten an additional US$200bn. Even while the tensions ratchet up – Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says that there are no talks taking place – the ZTE let-off continued. Even as China is rapidly losing tariff ammunition (it imports much less from the U.S. than vice-versa) other avenues include: RMB depreciation and selling U.S. treasuries.

North Korea: Secretary of State Pompeo visited Pyongyang, in an attempt to put the denuclearization process back on track. The north’s media accused him of acting like a gangster – presumably as he stuck to the plan of no sanctions relief until meaningful progress had been achieved. Representatives of the north did not attend a planned meeting about the remains of war dead – it was rescheduled for Sunday.

Trump-Putin: days before the long-awaited (long-feared) one-on-one meeting between the leaders of Russia and the U.S., Special Counsel Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the Democratic National Committee. The timing is not a coincidence – leaving Mueller open to claims of playing politics. The world will want to see if anything substantive is agreed by the highly mercurial Trump.