According to official reports, the United States and China are officially writing a trade agreement together that is expected to put an end to their trade war, indisputably the number one financial issue of 2018.
The United States and China first sat down and agreed on a temporary ceasefire at a G7 summit at the end of November last year and negotiated 90 days of no new tariff introductions. This period is up on March 1 when, if they had not made any significant progress in their trade talks by then, Donald Trump had vowed to introduce even stricter tariffs on Chinese imports. Nevertheless, it appears their talks were productive, since the US President recently gave assurances that he might hold off on the tariffs even after March 1 in order to allow legislators to continue negotiating.
The States and China still continue to have their differences; China is notorious for holding their ground on the assumption that everyone else needs them more than China needs them (because of the unparalleled attractiveness of cheap Chinese labor). It is not likely that China will simply concede to all American demands, but if the two countries indeed are drafting an actual agreement, no matter how general, it bodes well for the global economy.
In 2018 an economic slowdown was marked all around the world, and several developing markets experienced crashes. A possible end to the trade war will be a massive boost to many instruments.
