Beijing retaliated by slapping duties on approximately $60 billion of U. S. goods after the Washington imposed tariffs on about $200 billion of Chinese imports.<\/b>
\nAsia markets are set for a higher open after Wall Street appeared to shrug off an escalation in the U. S.-China trade war and ended the trading day higher.
The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 23,705, and at 23,640 in Osaka. The Nikkei 225 last closed at 23,420.54.
In Australia, the SPI futures contract was at 6,195 compared to the last close of the ASX 200 at 6,161.5.
In the U. S. markets on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared by 184.84 points to close at 26,246.96, while the S&P 500 rose by 0.5 percent at 2,904.31 and the Nasdaq Composite gained by 0.8 percent to 7,956.11.
The positive moves on Wall Street came despite a further escalation in the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, with China announcing that it was placing tariffs on approximately $60 billion worth of goods from the U. S. Some products which had previously been designated a 20 percent tariff, however, were revised down to 10 percent.
Beijing’s retaliation came after the Trump administration announced it was slapping 10 percent tariffs on approximately $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from Sept. 24. Those tariffs will rise to 25 percent on Jan. 1,2019.
In currency news, the U. S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, was off its previous high at 94.640 as of 6:53 a.m. HK\/SIN.
The Japanese yen was largely flat against the dollar at 112.35, while the Australian dollar continued to strengthen at $0.7226, as of 7:00 a.m. HK\/SIN.
„The (Australian dollar) is the best performing G10 currency over the past 24 hours,“ David de Garis, a director and senior economist at National Australia Bank, said in a morning note. He added that while the Australian dollar „is playing to the risk-on mood in markets, it’s a little surprising that markets have taken the news in its stride.“
Overnight in the oil markets, prices rose by more than 1 percent. The global benchmark Brent crude futures contract rose 1.3 percent to settle at $79.03 per barrel, while the U. S. crude futures contract saw gains of 1.4 percent to settle at $69.85 per barrel.
\u2014 CNBC’s Fred Imbert and Reuters contributed to this report.<\/p>\n