Rising mid-east risks and USD negativity on unilateral tariffs
Watching risks of escalation and unilateral tariffs.
Group Research - Econs, Chang Wei Liang13 Jun 2025
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Middle East geopolitical risks are rising after news of an airstrike by Israel on Iran on Thursday, though there are no details of what the targets wereThis is in the wake of limited progress in talks between US and Iran on curtailing the latter’s nuclear program. Markets will carefully assess risks of an escalation. Safe havens such as CHF and JPY have rallied, with USD/CHF breaking below 0.81 and USD/JPY easing below 143. Meanwhile, the risk-sensitive AUD has fallen below 0.65, and other risky assets could also see a pare back.

Trump’s plan to announce unilateral tariffs in the next 1-2 weeks has renewed selling pressures on the USD, with the DXY breaking below 98 for the first time since March 2022. His purported ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs have only reinforced the desire of foreign investors to liberate themselves from erratic US trade policy by paring and hedging their USD assets. EUR has been the prime beneficiary of such diversification outflows from the USD, with EUR/USD now surging to 1.16, a level it last saw in 2021.

Export-oriented North Asian currencies are the best performers in Asia on the unilateral tariff news, with KRW, TWD, and JPY gaining between 0.7%-1.0% yesterday. This may seem contradictory given their high dependence on exports, but Korea, Taiwan, and Japan hold a large amount of USD assets due to many years of current account surpluses. North Asian investors are thus actively evaluating the risks to their capital, as the US retreats from international trading norms that have served US capital markets so well in the past. To help insurers with large USD assets manage a falling USD/TWD, Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission will now allow insurers to use 6-month average exchange rates for calculating risk-based capital in their financial reports, instead of the closing exchange rate for the period. Insurers’ liabilities are very long dated, and thus we do not expect insolvency risks to arise from TWD appreciation.

USD/CNH has eased towards 7.17 amid broader USD weakness, helped by improving sentiment after US and China reached an agreement to a trade framework, in principle. Meanwhile, China’s real estate financing stresses may be turning a corner.  A real estate developer is looking to tap offshore USD bond markets, which will be the first time a private developer has done so since the start of China’s real estate downturn. PBOC rate cuts and easing HKD liquidity, which are being supported by inflows out of the USD, should buttress sentiment towards China real estate.

Chang Wei Liang

FX & Credit Strategist
[email protected]



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