Markets dropped even further after statements from POTUS that a trade agreement with China may not be reached until after the election in 2020.

At 08:25 ET, the Dow was down 0.96% to 27783 points, the S&P 500 by 0.86% to 3114 and the Stoxx Europe 50 by 0.38% to 3613 points.

The White House had probably circled the date of December 2 in red for a major offensive before the Holidays. Donald Trump led the initial charge by restoring customs surcharges on steel and aluminum from Argentina and Brazil, accused of devaluing their currency at the expense of American farmers. Economists doubt that the Midwest will benefit from this decision. Then, Wilbur Ross reminded Beijing that in the absence of a trade agreement, Washington is ready to tighten its import taxes. At the same time, the US administration threatened to overtax $2.4 billion of products from France in retaliation for the tax on digital companies. And promised to give the same treatment to Italy, Austria and Turkey, which also want to introduce such a tax regime.

Today, NATO members meet in London to mark the organization's 70th anniversary. Russia is in a difficult situation before the OPEC meeting this Thursday in Vienna, as the country does not respect production quotas.

Meanwhile, the new President of the ECB gave her first speech to the European Parliament yesterday. No indication of monetary policy was really expected from this testimony. On the other hand, Christine Lagarde said that the strategic review will include the notion of climate change in its operations. Quite large at the moment, but Europe's ambition would be to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, according to Ursula von der Leyen, the current President of the Commission. But wait… Yes, climate change is a really important issue to tackle, but isn’t the ECB supposed to be a Central Bank? Why would climate change be part of its responsibilities?

Today, the Australian central bank, as expected, left its policy rate unchanged. Producer prices in the euro zone will follow. No indicators are planned in the United States today, which is quite rare.