• AUD/USD trades flat near 0.7010 in Friday’s early Asian session.
• China’s Xi said Washington-Beijing ties reach a new historical milestone; major breakthroughs are not expected.
• The RBA is expected to raise its Official Cash Rate next week.

The AUD/USD pair holds steady around 0.7010 during the early Asian trading hours on Friday. Traders continue to assess the developments surrounding the US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping summit at the White House.

Xi Jinping said on Thursday that the US-China ties reached a new historical milestone, saying that they reached broad agreement on numerous issues and a new arrangement after trade talks is good news. A Chinese leader added that Beijing and Washington must find a proper way to coexist peacefully and act as partners rather than rivals, per the Financial Times.

On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the US and China have agreed to extend a bilateral trade truce that was set to expire in November through January 10.

However, markets see the summit was heavy on symbolism but light on substance, with no sign of breakthroughs on thorny issues such as AI, trade, Taiwan and the war with Iran. Any progress on US-China trade talks could provide some support to the China-proxy Aussie, as China is a major trading partner of Australia.

Australia’s Unemployment Rate climbed to 4.6% in August from 4.5% in July, the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed on Thursday. This report is a crucial piece of the economic puzzle ahead of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) rate decision next week.

It also followed RBA Governor Michele Bullock saying the jobless rate needs to rise for inflation to fall. The market is widely expecting a 25-basis-point RBA rate hike next week, and Thursday’s slight unemployment increase is unlikely to stay the RBA’s hand.

Australia jobs data keeps RBA tightening narrative intact

Brown Brothers Harriman’s Elias Haddad points out that the latest Australia labor force figures were mixed, with the “unemployment rate unexpectedly rose 0.1ppt to 4.6%, which was above consensus and RBA year-end projection of 4.5%.” He stresses, however, that this apparent deterioration in headline joblessness is largely a function of stronger labor supply, noting that “the increase in the jobless rate largely reflects a higher participation rate suggesting some tightness in the labor market persists.” In Haddad’s view, the underlying resilience of labor demand, despite the uptick in unemployment, supports the case for further RBA tightening and underpins the constructive medium-term outlook for the Aussie.

Technical Analysis: AUD/USD

In the daily chart, AUD/USD keeps a bearish near-term tone as spot holds below the 100-day moving average (MA) and the Bollinger middle band. Price is pressing the lower end of the Bollinger envelope, with the lower band now acting as immediate overhead resistance, while the Relative Strength Index (14) at 32.7 hovers near oversold territory, hinting that downside momentum is stretched but not yet reversed.

On the topside, initial resistance is aligned at the Bollinger lower band at 0.7015, followed by the 100-day MA at 0.7070, ahead of a denser cap at the Bollinger middle band near 0.7138; a sustained break above these layers would be needed to ease the current bearish pressure. Further up, the Bollinger upper band at 0.7260 marks a more distant barrier. With no clear structural supports printed below the market in this dataset, AUD/USD remains vulnerable to additional weakness while it trades beneath these clustered resistance levels.