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Investing.com -- The U.S. dollar rose on Thursday, boosted by its status as a safe haven asset after President Donald Trump signaled further escalation in the U.S. operation against Iran.
At 17:36 ET (21:36 GMT), the US Dollar Index was up 0.4% to 100.03.
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Trump’s harsh rhetoric against Iran boosts dollar
Market participants this week moved into risk assets and away from the dollar after signs of de-escalation between the U.S. and Iran. Sentiment was strong going into Trump’s scheduled address to the nation late on Wednesday.
However, the mood quickly soured after Trump said the U.S. will ramp up its operation against Iran in the coming weeks and that Washington was close to achieving its objectives.
"We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing … We have all the cards; they have none," the president said. He reiterated the need to debilitate Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and also claimed that Iran’s navy and missile strike capabilities had been largely wiped out.
The president also offered no details on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, instead reiterating his message to other countries to "just take" the critical waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas flows.
"We have seen the first part of the de-escalation trade in FX," strategists at ING led by Frantisek Taborsky said in a note.
"The second – another USD leg lower – requires greater clarity on Strait of Hormuz reopening plans, which seem more distant again after the headlines overnight," they added.
Sentiment was later boosted after Iran’s state TV said the country was developing a protocol with Oman to monitor vessel traffic through the strait. Iran will also set a toll for ships passing through the strait, a move that the U.S. has earlier called "unacceptable."
Investors await March jobs report
The focus now turns to key U.S. labor market data due on Friday in the form of the nonfarm payrolls report for March.
With Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this week saying that the right move was to look past oil supply shocks and that longer-term inflation expectations remained well anchored, cues on employment will be scrutinized for future monetary policy actions.
The economic calendar heading into Friday’s jobs report painted a mixed picture of the labor market.
On Thursday, data showed the number of Americans filing for initial jobless claims in the past week came in lower than expected. Earlier in the day, a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas said U.S. job cuts rose 25% M/M to 60,620 in February.
The week had been kicked off by a slightly soft JOLTS report in which job openings dipped in February and the hires rate slumped to its lowest level since April 2020.
Sterling slides as much as 0.6%
Turning to other major currencies, the rise in the U.S. dollar largely weighed on developed market peers on Thursday. The euro EUR/USD fell as much as 0.4%, though it had reversed course and was last up marginally to 1.1539.
Meanwhile, the sterling GBP/USD logged a bigger decline of as much as 0.6%, though it was last little changed at 1.3222. Britain is highly exposed to energy imports, and has a history of having to navigate through energy supply shocks.
Separately, a survey by the Bank of England showed British firms polled in March expected to raise their prices by 3.7% over the next year, compared to 3.4% when polled in February. The rise was largely due to firms adjusting their expectations due to surging oil prices from the Middle East conflict.
Elsewhere, the Japanese yen USD/JPY was flat at 159.57.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar AUD/USD reversed an earlier decline of about 0.2%.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the country’s trade surplus widened sharply to A$5.69 billion in February, well above forecasts, as exports rose 4.9% and imports fell 3.2%.
Ayushman Ojha and Vahid Karaahmetovic contributed to this article
