Late Tuesday, Reuters quotes the US Commerce Department’s statement saying, “US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Chinese Ambassador, as well as the Vice Foreign Minister, Xie Feng and had a ‘productive discussion’ ahead of her trip to China.”

While conveying the details of the meeting, the news also states that US Commerce Secretary Raimondo highlighted the importance to the US businesses and workers.

The news also states the policymakers’ discussion about issues relating to the US–China commercial ties and the challenges faced by US businesses, as well as the areas for potential cooperation.

Earlier in the week, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) removed 27 Chinese entities from its Unverified List, removing sanctions from those entities and flagged hopes of the improving US-China ties.

Market reaction

The news seems to have underpinned the latest pause in the risk aversion and put a floor under the AUD/USD prices, edging higher to 0.6425 by the press time of early Wednesday morning in Asia.