Investing.com - Oil prices fell on Monday in Asia after U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is “not ready to make a deal” with China, stoking fears of weakening oil demand.
U.S. Crude Oil WTI Futures dropped 0.3% to $54.34 by 12:54 AM ET (04:54 GMT). International Brent Oil Futures fell 0.2% to $58.41.
“China wants to do something, but I’m not doing anything yet,” Trump said on Friday. “Twenty-five years of abuse. I’m not ready so fast.”
The president added that it would be “fine” if U.S.-China negotiations planned for next month were called off.
“Oil continues to be sensitive to trade war rhetoric,’’ Alfonso Esparza, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said in a note cited by Bloomberg.
“Saudi Arabia is willing to do more to prevent a free fall, but hard to imagine what that would look like. The prolonged trade war has been a negative factor for global growth estimates.’’
On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Chinese economic growth will slow further if the trade war with the U.S. drags on.
The IMF also trimmed its forecasts for oil demand growth in 2019 and 2020 to 1.1 million and 1.3 million barrels per day respectively.
In a note released over the weekend, Goldman Sachs also warned that fears of the trade war leading to a recession were increasing.