New US and China trade talks to start on Monday

An American delegation is set to visit China next week, at a time when US markets are smarting from a rout after tech giant Apple issued a profit warning on Thursday. Poignantly, those losses were fueled in large part by the trade tensions with Beijing which have hammered business sentiment on both sides of the Pacific.

Combined, in 2018 China and the US imposed tariffs on over $300bn (£237bn)-worth of goods.

China's commerce ministry said the goal of the upcoming talks, to be held in Beijing on 7 and 8 January, will be "implementing the important consensus" reached by the two leaders at the Buenos Aires G20 summit in December 2018.

The US and China face the key March deadline for talks to end the damaging trade war or The White House could implement another hike in US tariffs on Chinese goods to which Beijing would most likely retaliate.

Neil Wilson, analyst at Markets.com said on Friday: “Trade talks take place next week and we may start to see that the effects on both the stock markets and on the real economies of the respective countries will focus their attention. That may just be an optimist’s view of the world – the US is still in the stronger position and will not easily give it up.”