WH Adviser Navarro: US will keep tariffs on China even if coronavirus starts hurting growth – CNBC

White House Adviser Peter Navarro crossed wires, via CNBC, during the early Thursday morning in Asia. The Trump administrator said to ignore coronavirus impact on the Chinese economy while keeping tariffs on imports from Beijing.

Key quotes

The U.S. will keep in place tariffs on Chinese imports, even if the deadly coronavirus begins to weigh on China’s economy.

That’s a spin that’s coming right out of Wall Street, and it really, I think, it does a disservice to this whole crisis to bring that into the discussion.

Navarro’s comments on CNBC come hours after President Donald Trump signed into law the new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, making Canada the final country that needs to ratify it.

FX implications

Despite being an additional burden on the risk-tone, other than coronavirus fears, the news fails to have any immediate market reaction amid the mostly silent Asian session. To portray this, AUD/USD and NZD/USD kept taking rounds to 0.6750 and 0.6530 whereas USD/JPY also showed a little reaction as flashing 109.00 by the press time.