Under pressure from US President Donald Trump, who imposed 30 percent tariffs and threatened to impose them on August 1, the Mexican peso is losing ground against the dollar at the start of global electronic trading.

The Mexican currency is down 0.20 percent against the U.S. currency in early trading on Monday in Asian markets, trading at around 18.6600 pesos per dollar.

It's worth remembering that the Mexican peso closed Friday on the wholesale market at 18.6444 pesos per spot dollar. The Mexican currency showed a marginal weekly depreciation against the dollar of just 0.08 percent.

The U.S. president stepped up his trade war on Mexico this weekend and warned that he will respond with an additional increase to any retaliation.

Mexico finally learned this Saturday of Trump's ruling on a 30 percent tariff on its exports to the United States. President Donald Trump communicated the figure to Mexico and the European Union on the same day, as he has been doing since last Monday, in a letter addressed to the leaders of the countries with which Washington hopes to review its goods trade agreements.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which measures the US dollar's performance against a basket of six international currencies, fell 0.03 percent in early trading on Monday, to 97.505 points.

Economic analysts suggest the Mexican peso could remain defensive, although asymmetric risks persist, such as tariff threats and disagreements between Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Trump, who maintains the United States should have lower interest rates and that the central banker is always late to act.

With the dollar expected to remain weak, the Mexican peso has, in turn, reflected a more defensive stance given Mexico's improved relative position amid the new tariff attacks.

For now, positions in favor of the Mexican peso persist in Chicago, as bets in favor of the national currency rise. According to data from the Chicago futures market, net speculative positions in favor of the peso increased by a total of 55,100 net short contracts in Chicago, each worth 500,000 pesos.

Futures on U.S. markets are trading lower, with the Japanese Nikkei down 0.46 percent and the South Korean Kospi up 0.51 percent.

Safe-haven gold is up 0.57 percent to $3,382.10 a troy ounce, while Bitcoin is hovering above record levels at $119,128.