After a full second day of discussion on the US-China trade deal, we finally have... something.

As Bloomberg reports, just before midnight London time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and China’s Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang both said they have agreed in principle on "a framework for implementing the Geneva consensus" combined with the outcome of the leaders June 5th call. 

“Once the presidents approve it, we will then seek to implement it,” Lutnick added.

If it sounds confusing, it is: the parties said they will implement a framework which was already agreed upon weeks ago... so what exactly were the talks for? Shouldn't there have been at least some token progress beyond what was already agreed upon, hence "consensus." 

Lutnick adding that “We absolutely expect that the topic of rare earth minerals and magnets… will be resolved in this framework implementation," does not make it any clearer if there is any actual deal on rare earths and/or chips... or just an agreement to continue talks?

Lutnick continued: “Also, there were a number of measures the US put on when those rare earths were not coming… You should expect those to come off — sort of, as President Trump said, in a balanced way. When they approve the licenses, then you should expect that our export implementation will come down as well” which suggests that nothing has been resolved at this stage, and instead we just wait for China to start exporting rare earth minerals?

And yes, for all the pomp and circumstance, it appears that all that took place in the past 48 hours was some meetings over coffee and KFC, because as Lutnick also said, the "framework is a first step, we had to get the negativity out."

Well, the negativity may be out, but no actual deals or agreements are in; instead agreement was reached to implement the implementation of an already agreed upon consensus. 

Finally, the Commerce secretary said that the idea behind the framework is to increase trade with China, which is great but wasn't the whole point of the negotiation to rebalance trade, not merely increase it? After all, it's very easy to receive even more Chinese exports and "increase trade."

Meanwhile, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said there were no other meetings scheduled, but added that the American and Chinese sides talk frequently and are able to do so whenever they need.

On the news, gold fell through 3320 but promptly rebounded as the market realized that what the announcement effectively boils down to is that the two sides have agreed to speak more. 

Spoos were trading at 6,040, before jerking higher, lower, and at last check trading unchanged from where they closed the regular session. 

In FX, cross-JPY buying morphed into broad USD selling with cross-JPY not really gaining traction; USDJPY is back under 145 after rising to a high of 145.10.