China has retaliated with tariffs on $60 billion of US goods, which Beijing has described as a “forced response” to America.
China and the US are among the world’s biggest oil consumers and the ongoing trade war is affecting the demand outlook as the dip in trade has affected the growth in the demand for oil.
The tariffs Mr Trump has imposed are thought to limit economic activity in China and the United States as less fuel is consumed to move goods for trade.
The international benchmark for crude prices, Brent crude futures, fell 29 cents or 0.37 percent to $77.76 per barrel.
US West Texas Intermediate crude Clcl was down 15 cents, or 0.22 percent at $68.76 per barrel.
Chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, Norihiro Fujito, said: “Considering his latest comments as well as recent falls in his support, it is hard to expect Trump to soften his stance on trade in the near future.”
Head of crude research at Guotai Junan Futures, Wang Xiao, said: “The growing trade dispute has hurt trading sentiment. The impact on economic growth is slowly dripping in, which again hurts oil prices.”
The Bank of America Merrill Lynch has said that ahead of the US crude sanctions against Iran in November, the oil producer has decreased its export loadings by 580,000 barrels per day in the past three months.
Russia has said that Moscow is prepared to work with the US to balance the oil market after the two countries had a meeting last week to discuss boosting oil output.
The founder and chairman of Alibaba, Jack Ma, has warned that the trade war between the US and China could last as long as 20 years.
At the beginning of September, Chinese demand for oil slumped after the US imposed further sanctions on Iran, one of the world’s biggest oil importers.
Beijing was the world’s leading importer of oil in 2017 and imported around 8.4 million barrels of crude per day.