On Thursday, the U.S. has provided Initial Jobless Claims and Continuing Jobless Claims reports. Initial Jobless Claims declined to 1.19 million while analysts projected that it will stay above 1.4 million. Continuing Jobless Claims fell from 17 million to 16.1 million. This is better than expected employment reports provided additional support to the U.S. dollar.

The U.S. will also provide several employment reports on Friday. Non-Farm Payrolls report is projected to show that 1.6 million jobs were added in July while the Unemployment Rate is expected to fall from 11.1% in June to 10.5% in July.

Meanwhile, Canada will provide its employment reports for July on Friday. The Employment Change report is projected to show that the economy added 400,000 jobs in July. Unemployment Rate is expected to decline from 12.3% in June to 11% in July.

US President Donald Trump has reimposed a 10% tariff on some Canadian aluminium products. These developments follow the new USMCA trade deal ratified earlier this year that just went into effect this past July. It has to be noted that The Canadian aluminium industry contributes nearly $5-billion to annual GDP, and approximately 75% of production is exported to the United States.

Speaking in Ohio on Thursday, Mr. Trump said the tariffs were necessary to defend the US aluminium industry because Canadian producers had broken their commitment to stop flooding the US market with a cheaper product. The step was “absolutely necessary to defend our aluminium industry,” he said.

USD/CAD 4 Hour Chart:

Support: 1.3251 (S1), 1.3207 (S2), 1.3172 (S3).

Resistance: 1.3330 (R1), 1.3366 (R2), 1.3409 (R3).

These news suggest an struggling pace for Loonie, whether the upcoming employment reports of US and Canada later today changes it is yet to be seen. As of now, we expect a bullish trend for USD/CAD.