By Mike Murphy
President Donald Trump holds up a signed memorandum of understanding between Thailand and the U.S. on Sunday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ahead of the ASEAN summit.
U.S. stock-market futures gained Sunday after top negotiators for the U.S. and China expressed optimism that a new trade deal is in reach, ahead of a key meeting later this week between President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping.
An agreement between the two leaders would likely reassure global markets, which have seen volatile trading this year as trade tensions between the U.S. and China – the world’s two largest economies – have been stuck in a cycle of escalations and cool-downs.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM00) rose around 300 points, or 0.6%, late Sunday. S&P 500 futures (ES00) gained 0.7% and Nasdaq-100 futures (NQ00) jumped 0.9%. Bitcoin surged more than 1% to above $114,700. Gold (GC00) and silver (SI00) futures fell, while crude (CL00) rose.
Wall Street hit record highs Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA up 1% to 47,207.12, the S&P 500 SPX rose 0.8%, to finish at 6,791.69 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP gained 1.1%, to end at 23,204.87. For the week, the Dow jumped 2.2%, the S&P 500 advanced 1.9% and the Nasdaq surged 2.3%.
The U.S. and China have reached “preliminary consensus,” China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, said Sunday. U.S. Treasury Secretary confirmed that, saying “I think we have a very successful framework for the leaders to discuss on Thursday.”
The apparent breakthrough followed two days of negotiations in Malaysia. The talks included issues ranging from a tariff truce to rare-earths access to renewed agricultural purchases by China.
Bessent told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning that Trump’s threat of additional 100% tariffs on Chinese goods were “effectively off the table,” along with “the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export-control regime.”
Bessent also said U.S. soybean farmers, who have been crippled by China’s boycott of their products, “are going to be extremely happy with this deal.”
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said avoiding rare-earths restrictions by China was a top priority, and that “I think we’re progressing toward that goal very well.”
Trump, who is in Malaysia ahead of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, told reporters that he expects a “good deal with China.”
“They want to make a deal, and we want to make a deal,” Trump said.
That all came on the heels of a new threat from Trump on Saturday, when he said he would raise tariffs by 10% on Canadian goods in retaliation for a national-TV ad from Ontario Premier Doug Ford featuring a speech by former President Ronald Reagan decrying tariffs.
Read more: Here’s who is behind the Reagan anti-tariff ads that got Trump to ditch trade talks with Canada
Products from Canada already face tariffs ranging from 10% to 50%. But it’s unclear if Trump has the authority to unilaterally raise tariffs. Courts have ruled he exceeded his authority with his sweeping tariffs, and the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to take up the issue next month.
-Mike Murphy
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-26-25 1818ET
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