Mubasher: Gold prices went up on Monday after US President Donald Trump said that he will hike tariffs on Chinese goods, upping the ante with China, stoking risk-averse sentiment, while boosting safe-haven appetite, according to Reuters.

By 10:27 am GMT, spot gold rose by 0.21% to $1,281.81 per ounce, while US gold futures went up by 0.12% to $1,282.90 per ounce.

President Trump on Sunday threatened that he will raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese products this week, while saying that he would also target “shortly” another $325 billion list of Chinese imports with 25% levies.

“We have seen a bit of a risk-averse move this morning in Asian trading following the comments from Trump over the weekend regarding the US-China trade deal,” Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ) analyst Daniel Hynes was quoted by the new agency.

“This made safe-haven gold somehow attractive for investors, and thus “[jolting] the market back into action,” Hynes added.

Trump’s tweeted threat dragged down global equities and crude prices, while assets like the Japanese yen (JPY) gained, as the currency is deemed a safe haven during times of geopolitical or global economic tensions.

Gold trimmed its weekly loss on Friday as investors covered their short positions and US dollar declined after US job figures showed weaker-than-expected wage gains.

“Having made a comeback on a weaker dollar last Friday, gold is poised to benefit strongly from safe-haven flows as investors dump stocks and rotate into bonds and precious metals,” a note by OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley was quoted by Reuters.

The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, ticked up 0.06% to 97.5830.