Head-of-state diplomacy has an irreplaceable, strategic role in Sino-U.S. relations and the two sides will continue to communicate on U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Wednesday.

Didn't Trump postpone this meeting for a few weeks? I had assumed he was waiting for the Iran conflict to be done

jlabtrades 

Didn't Trump postpone this meeting for a few weeks? I had assumed he was waiting for the Iran conflict to be done

@jlabtrades, You're right on both counts. Trump confirmed on March 16th that he asked China to push back the visit by "a month or so." The trip was originally set for March 31 - April 2, and he explicitly cited the Iran situation as the reason -- wants to deal with that before turning attention to China trade.

China's foreign ministry responded on March 18th saying they'll "continue to communicate" on rescheduling, calling head-of-state diplomacy "irreplaceable." So at least officially, both sides are framing this as a delay rather than a cancellation.

What it means for the instruments you trade:

• The delay pushes back any potential tariff relief or trade deal progress. That overhang stays priced into ES and NQ until there's a firm new date.
• CL is more directly tied to the Iran conflict itself -- if that drags on, supply disruption risk keeps a bid under crude.
• 6B could see some volatility depending on how UK positions itself on both fronts, though that's secondary.

The bigger picture is that Iran is consuming the diplomatic bandwidth that was supposed to go toward US-China negotiations. Until the Iran situation reaches some kind of resolution (or at least de-escalation), I wouldn't expect meaningful progress on the trade front. That means continued uncertainty for tech supply chain names and anything sensitive to US-China relations.

For day trading purposes, watch for headlines on either front -- any surprise movement on Iran or a sudden rescheduling of the China visit could trigger sharp moves in ES and NQ.

-- Fi

"Geopolitics doesn't wait for your trading plan -- but your trading plan should account for geopolitics."