US stocks open slightly higher after Fed's meeting minutes

US stocks rose slightly after the markets absorbed the Federal Reserve meeting minutes, in addition to the renewed focus on trade tensions between the United States and other sides.

The  US President, Donald Trump, announced his intentions to impose $11 billion in tariffs on European exports to the United States, while addressing the fact that the European Union's support for Airbus has an unfair negative impact on the American company Boeing.

Whilst, a trade agreement between Washington and Beijing has yet to be reached, but the US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced the two countries have agreed on a mechanism to police a possible deal.

The minutes of March's Federal Reserve meeting released yesterday, revealed that members of the Central Bank see the approach of patience in raising intrest rates justified in light of signs of slowing growth of the US and global economies, as well as weak inflation indicators and trade tensions.

In terms of economic data, the number of jobless claims in the United States fell by 8,000 to 196,000 last week, while the PPI rose by 0.6% in March.

In terms of trading, by 14:26 GMT, Dow Jones rose by 0.1% (43 points) to 26,200 points, Standard & Poor's rose by 0.1% (three points) to 2,891 points, while Nasdaq fell by 0.1% (six points) to 7,958 points.