US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on a wide range of his country’s trading partners has put renewed pressure on Asia’s G3 bond markets just as they were starting to regain their footing after a difficult few months.
The abrupt change of investor sentiment, which came on May 29 after Trump announced a 25% tariff on $50 billion of Chinese goods, meant the month's activity ended with a nasty sting in its tail.
Such bursts of geopolitical volatility may come to be the defining motif for 2018, superseding the fall-off in issuance and rebound in US Treasuries, which had allowed Asian credit spreads to begin...