NEW YORK: The dollar fell on Friday, as investors worried after China fought back against a new US threat to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, and as the market took in a report showing the US economy in March created the fewest jobs in six months.
The greenback slid against the safe-haven yen and Swiss franc in the wake of China's comments. The US-China trade dispute outweighed the US payrolls report that showed fewer job gains than expected, but a pick-up in wage growth.
"The US jobs report was somewhat overshadowed this week by the ongoing back and forth between the world's two largest economies which has threatened to disrupt the period of strong growth the global economy is seeing," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst, at OANDA in London.
"Despite that, traders as ever were paying very close attention to the data release and were clearly unmoved by what they saw, despite the non-farm payroll number being well below expectations," he added.
China warned it would fight back "at any cost," hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods.
The yen and Swiss franc, two currencies investors buy in times of market stress, rallied as result, with the dollar falling 0.4 percent to 107.02 yen and declining 0.3 percent to 0.9601 franc.
Losses in the dollar escalated after China's Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said the country will not hesitate to respond if the United States adds further tariffs. He ruled out negotiations under these conditions.
In mid-morning trading, the dollar index was down 0.3 percent at 90.18.
The US nonfarm payrolls report showed just 103,000 jobs in March, well below the market forecast of 193,000 and February's surge of 326,000.
The bright spot was a 0.3 percent rise in wage growth, which pushed the annual wage growth rate up.
Wage growth, like core inflation, "is still muted, but there is clear evidence of an acceleration over the past few months in the monthly gains," said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist, at Capital Economics in Toronto.
"Overall, looking through the volatility, employment growth is trending higher and wage growth is starting to heat up," he added.
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