Although the focus of oil markets in recent months has been on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the latest Saudi Arabia-instigated oil price war, still bubbling away under the surface is the previous major markets driver: the U.S.-China trade war. Progress in meeting the requirements of the deal were scheduled to be reviewed over the weekend by U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, and China’s chief economic adviser, Liu Hu, but have been postponed. Part of the reason for this is believed to be that as of the end of June, China had met less than 25 per cent of the targets set out in the deal. Tensions relating to this, and to tangential matters relating to the broader deal, are set to re-emerge dramatically in the run-up to the U.S. Presidential Election on 3 November 2020. The effect on oil prices of this rapidly shifting-dynamic does […]