An outbreak of swine flu in China poses a greater immediate threat to the dry cargo market than US president Donald Trump’s latest trade-war sabre-rattling, Norden says.

African swine flu has been sweeping across South East Asia and is now widespread in China after first being detected last August.

At the same time Trump has dented hopes of a truce in his long-running tariff spat with China with threats of new and higher charges on Twitter on Sunday.