Gold reached a record high on Thursday as anxious investors flocked to safe-haven assets following U.S. President Donald Trump’s unexpected announcement of tougher tariffs on key trading partners, escalating the global trade conflict.
Spot gold GOLD touched an all-time high of $3,167.57 earlier in the day and was up 0.4% at $3,145.93 an ounce as of 0018 GMT.
U.S. gold futures GOLD strengthened at $3,170.70, up 0.1%.
Trump intensified a trade battle that has caused global markets to tremble and confused U.S. allies by declaring on Wednesday that he will slap a 10% baseline tax on all imports to the U.S. and higher penalties on dozens of other nations, including some of the United States’ largest trading partners.
The Trump administration also said that levies on imports of auto components will begin on May 3 and that his 25% worldwide tariffs on cars and trucks will go into force on April 3 as planned.
Instability over tariffs, interest rate reduction, geopolitical crises, and central bank purchases have all contributed to gold’s 19% increase so far this year. Gold is typically viewed as a hedge against political and financial instability.
Although U.S. private payrolls grew faster than anticipated in March, experts continued to believe that the labour market was stagnating in the face of growing economic uncertainty brought on by tariffs.
For more hints about the direction of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, all eyes will be on the U.S. non-farm payrolls data, which is expected on Friday.
Platinum (PL1) dropped 0.8% to $975.93, palladium (XPDUSD1) dropped 0.6% to $964.56, and spot silver (XAGUSD1) sank 1.2% to $33.61 an ounce.
