President Donald Trump said a deal with China to pause the trade war between the world’s two largest economies was “very close”, propelling the US equity market to a record high.
The optimistic comment came as Mr Trump was due to meet his trade advisers to decide whether to delay tariffs on $156bn of Chinese imports scheduled to hit a vast swath of consumer goods on Sunday.
For more than two months, officials in Beijing and Washington have been attempting to strike a limited truce in their trade conflict, with a deal mainly involving large-scale Chinese purchases of US farm goods and some additional measures on currency and intellectual property.