Investing.com - The dollar slid against a currency basket on Wednesday and the euro was flat as U.S. President Donald Trump prepared to host European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for trade talks.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, edged down 0.13% to 94.27 by 10:07 AM ET (14:07 GMT).
Trump is to host a European Union delegation in the White House, with talks set to center on the auto industry amid heightened trade tensions between Europe and Washington.
Last month the U.S. slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the EU, which led to Europe putting 25% tariffs on bourbon whiskey, peanut butter, motorcycles and jeans.
Ahead of the talks Trump tweeted that tariffs are “great”, and called for both sides to completely abolish tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.
The EU said it is preparing to impose tariffs on $20 billion of U.S. imports if Washington follows through on threats to impose tariffs on auto imports from the bloc.
The euro was almost flat, with EUR/USD trading at 1.1692 in rangebound trade.
Investors were also looking ahead to a European Central Bank policy meeting on Thursday for fresh guidance on monetary policy.
At its June meeting the ECB indicated that rates would remain on hold through the middle of 2019 and also announced plans to wind up its massive stimulus program in December.
The dollar was a touch lower against the yen, with USD/JPY last at 111.09.
The Japanese currency found support earlier in the week following reports that the Bank of Japan is actively discussing changes to its massive monetary stimulus program. The BoJ is due to hold its next policy meeting at the end of the month.
The pound was almost unchanged for the day, with GBP/USD at 1.3140.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar was lower, with AUD/USD falling 0.43% to 0.7414 after sluggish inflation data overnight indicated that the country’s central bank is likely to leave interest rates on hold for longer.