On Tuesday, the U.S. signed a deal with Japan to lower hefty import duties on Japanese imports and secured a $550 billion package of U.S.-bound investment and loans from Tokyo.
Trump also announced a new 19% tariff rate for both the Philippines and Indonesia, lower than the rate threatened earlier this month, sending local equities soaring.
Markets have shown resilience in the face of sweeping U.S. duties, in hopes of more trade deals that could mitigate them ahead of Trump’s August 1 deadline. However, little progress before the Japan and Philippines deals had left investors uncertain over how the tariffs would be implemented.
The fresh trade optimism spread to EMs globally, with MSCI’s global EM stocks gauge CBOE:EFS trading near levels last seen in January 2022.
Stocks in Latin America were also broadly higher, with heavyweight Brazilian ones gaining 0.6%, while ones in Colombia were up 0.1%.
Mexico’s America Movil and Banorte added 3% each, after their upbeat quarterly results. The telecoms giant and the lender boosted Mexican stocks, which gained 1%, outperforming peers
The index tracking regional stocks (.MILA00000PUS) was up 1%, set for its biggest one-day gain since late June. Meanwhile, the measure of Latam currencies (.MILA00000CUS) was up 0.2%.
Investors in Latam refrained from placing big bets on currencies as they digested the deals.
“The uncertainty has not fully gone away. Overall (the deals) give mixed signals because no matter what, tariffs are always going to be able to be brought back as a negotiating tool,” said Juan Perez, head of trading at Monex USA.
Perez said markets were wondering how long the tariffs would remain low for Japan as they “came out of nowhere” and the ever-changing narrative on tariffs was making investors hesitant.
Most currencies were little changed in choppy trading except for the Mexican peso , which firmed 0.4% against the dollar.
The Brazilian real strengthened slightly after the government eased the total spending curbs previously deemed necessary to comply with fiscal rules, and raised its net revenue forecast by 27.1 billion reais($4.87 billion) this year, according to its latest revenue and expenditure report.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration has been trying to incorporate fiscal discipline ever since investors sold off Brazilian assets last year, making the real one of the worst performers in 2024.
