US president threatens additional 50 percent tariff on China, as Beijing pledges to fight trade salvoes ‘to the end.’
US stocks have mostly closed lower after a day of wild swings in the market, as investors scramble to make sense of United States President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.
The benchmark S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday fell 0.23 percent and 0.91 percent, respectively, racking up a third conservative day of losses.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite finished slightly up, rising 0.099 percent.
The dip followed a day of volatile trading, with unfounded reports that Trump was considering a 90-day pause to his tariffs briefly sending the S&P 500 up more than 7 percent.
The index quickly reserved its gains after the White House dismissed the report, which was picked up by a number of news outlets after being circulated on social media, as “fake news”.
US stock futures – which are traded outside of usual market hours – pointed to a possible reprieve from the losing streak on Tuesday, with contracts tied to the S&P500 and the Nasdaq up 0.98 percent and 1.02 percent, respectively.
After following Wall Street’s earlier losses, some Asian markets on Tuesday opened higher.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose nearly 6 percent in early trading.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained more than 2.3 percent, after taking the biggest plunge since the 1997 Asian financial crisis in the previous session.
South Korea’s Kospi and Australia’s ASX200 each gained about 1.5 percent.
However, stocks in Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam opened sharply lower.
Despite the market turmoil and expressions of concern by top business leaders, Trump on Monday indicated that he could escalate his trade war further.
In a post on his platform Truth Social, Trump said he would slap an additional 50 percent tariff on China from Thursday if it did not scrap its planned 34 percent retaliatory duty on US imports.
“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!” Trump said.
Speaking at the White House later, Trump said that an EU proposal to exempt industrial products from tariffs did not go far enough and clarified that his administration was “not looking” at any pause to the tariffs he has announced so far.
China’s commerce ministry on Tuesday hit back at Trump’s latest tariff threat, calling it a “mistake on top of a mistake.”
“China will never accept this,” a ministry spokesperson said.
“If the US insists on going its own way, China will fight it to the end,”
US customs authorities began imposing a baseline tariff of 10 percent on imports on Sunday, with steeper duties of between 11 percent and 50 percent set to take effect against dozens of countries on Wednesday.
China, the US’s main strategic rival and its third-largest trading partner, is facing a 34 percent tariff.
Numerous US allies are also bracing for a hit to their export markets, with the European Union, Japan and South Korea facing duties of between 20 and 25 percent.
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