Trump has framed his most recent tariffs as “retaliatory,” but an analysis from the investment bank Evercore shows how the U.S. is now levying duties far in excess of other countries around the world.
The World Trade Organization confirmed Friday that it received a request for consultations from China with the United States regarding its tariffs.
Further information will be provided later on the WTO’s website, an official said.
Crude oil prices fell 8% this morning as the broader global asset sell-off triggered by Trump’s massive tariff regime continued.
As of about 10 a.m. ET, West Texas Intermediate crude declined to $61.45, hours after China fired back with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. In just over two months in office, Trump has hit Chinese imports with duties of 54%. That’s in addition to tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s tenure.
Trump lashed out at China in a Truth Social post this morning, saying it “panicked” in response to his action.
In another Truth Social post this morning, Trump hit out at China’s retaliatory-tariffs response.
“CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED — THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!” the president wrote.
The major U.S. stock indexes dropped sharply just minutes into Friday trading as President Donald Trump’s historic tariffs announcement — and fresh retaliatory duties imposed by China — sent further shockwaves through the global economy.
The S&P 500 fell more than 2%, deepening a decline that began in February. The index, which tracks 500 of the leading U.S. companies, is now down almost 14% from its peak.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down even further, sliding about 3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,000 points, or about 2.5%.
It’s shaping up to be a second-straight rough day for markets. On Thursday, the S&P 500 had its worst day since the early days of the Covid pandemic.
Major sell-offs in markets across the globe preceded the U.S. declines. European stocks veered toward a correction, having now declined 10% from recent highs. Asian markets also cratered.
Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports will not have come as a major shock to Beijing, with China appearing “ready to take some pain” in the growing trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, Andrew Gilholm, head of China analysis at consultancy Control Risks, told NBC News in a phone interview.
“Beijing’s been expecting this for a long time, and I think they believe they’re able to take the pain of the impact of this kind of trade war far longer than the U.S. is able to tolerate,” Gilholm said. His comments came after China announced a retaliatory 34% tariff on all products imported from the U.S., matching the new measure from Washington.
“Obviously that hurts China more because they’re exporting a lot more to the U.S. than vice versa, but that’s why they’ve been going beyond tariffs recently,” Gilholm said, noting additional measures taken by Beijing, including adding 11 U.S. companies to its “unreliable entities” list, blocking them from importing from or exporting to China, and putting 16 companies on its export control list.
Gilholm said China was likely hopeful for an eventual de-escalation of the trade fight. “I think they’re kind of hoping for the best but bracing for the worst,” he said. “I don’t want to underestimate how difficult this is for them, but they’ve been bracing for this and preparing for this for years and I think … they’re kind of ready to take some pain if necessary and they’ve been signaling that for a long time.”
President Trump addressed investors this morning by declaring his policies wouldn’t change and saying: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”
Trump posted the message on Truth Social as U.S. stock futures pointed to another rout in the markets, a day after the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their worst days in five years.
Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities financial group, is out with a note this morning warning that Trump’s tariffs shock will lead to “economic Armageddon” if not dialed back.
“Never have we … seen a self-inflicted debacle of epic proportions like the Trump tariff slate over the last 36 hours,” he wrote.
While the concept of reciprocal tariffs makes sense, Ives said, what Trump laid out in the Rose Garden instead was simply a crude measure of the U.S. trade deficits.
It is unrealistic to re-shore the entire tech supply chain, he said. As a result the tariffs will be especially harmful to the U.S. tech sector: The cost of electronics could surge as much as 50% for U.S. consumers and crush tech firms’ earnings.
That, in turn, would have a knock-on effect on tech’s investments in artificial intelligence.
“The concept of taking the U.S. back to the 1980s ‘manufacturing days’ with these tariffs is a bad science experiment that in the process will cause an economic Armageddon in our view and crush the tech trade, AI revolution theme, and overall industry in the process,” he wrote.
The International Monetary Fund is urging nations to work together with the U.S. to resolve their trade issues.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the organization is “still assessing the macroeconomic implications of the announced tariff measures,” and they “represent a significant risk to the global outlook at a time of sluggish growth.”
Georgieva said she planned to share the results of their assessment later this month in Washington.
JP Morgan has published a research note raising its odds of a global recession to 60% in response to Trump’s tariffs shock.
In a note released late Thursday titled “There will be blood,” JPM analysts said the tariffs represent the biggest tax hike to U.S. consumers since 1968. The analysts predict lasting damage to the U.S. economy from “sustained restrictive trade policies and reduced immigration flows,” while price increases will “eat into real labor income and, in turn purchasing power.”
“A turn towards caution by households alongside a slide in business spending could well push the economy into recession next quarter,” they write.
A slowdown in the U.S. will likely cause a global recession, they conclude, as raising the cost of goods purchases that U.S. households and businesses value most “will prove costly and generate disruptions in global supply-chains.”
“It will also promote inefficiencies as trade flows are redirected through countries with lower tariff rates,” they write.
“We view the full implementation of announced policies as a substantial macroeconomic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts,” they conclude. “We thus emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly global economy into recession this year.”
The U.S. must “get back to a time when we were a country that can make things,” and “provide jobs for Americans,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
Responding to a question from NBC News on the potential impacts of the Trump administration’s tariff announcement on European willingness to spend more on defense, Rubio said markets were “reacting to a dramatic change in the global order, in terms of trade” and were “adjusting to the new rules.”
“They just need to know what the rules are. Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those rules,” he said. Rubio maintained that the U.S. must “reset the global order of trade” in order to be able to create jobs.
“The president rightly has concluded that the current status of global trade is bad for America and good for a bunch of other people. And he’s going to reset it, and he’s absolutely right to do it,” he said.
Investors plowed into government bonds in anticipation of global growth slowing dramatically in response to China slapping tariffs on imports from the U.S.
Yields on bonds fell to 3.90%, the lowest level since before election day. When traders anticipate reduced growth, they demand so-called safe-haven assets like bonds that pay fixed income. When demand for bonds increases, their prices rise and yields fall.
The lower yields also coincide with increased bets that the Federal Reserve will be forced to cut interest rates to soften the blow from reduced economic activity.
While Trump has sought both lower bond yields — which influence other borrowing rates in the economy, like mortgage rates — and lower interest rates from the Fed, it may end coming at a high cost.
Russia is keeping an eye on the “high level of turbulence on global markets” after Trump’s sweeping tariffs yesterday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today.
“I wouldn’t say it’s in our interest,” Peskov said. “Russia isn’t on the list for obvious reasons because we don’t have trade with the U.S. in any tangible numbers. There is no trade and economic relations.”
But, he said Russia “can see that the global economy is reacting to these decisions quite emotionally.”
“The world economy is in turmoil right now,” he added.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Trump’s tariffs on the European Union as “brutal and unfounded” last night as he warned that the measures would only hurt the U.S. economy.
“You don’t correct trade imbalances by putting tariffs in place,” Macron said, speaking in French, at a meeting with representatives from sectors affected by the decision.
““Americans, be that businesses or the people, will come out of this weaker and poorer than yesterday,” Macron said, warning that tariffs were not the answer to the problem of deindustrialization in the West.
“And we need to hammer that point home,” he added. “And we need to stand strong because these decisions are not sustainable for the American economy itself.”
The pain isn’t over yet for stock markets.
U.S. stock futures fell even further this morning after China announced it would retaliate against Trump’s massive tariffs with a 34% duty on American products.
S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures fell more than 2%, while Dow futures pointed to another 1,000-point drop of around 2.5%.
Yesterday, the Dow fell more than 1,600 points, while the S&P and Nasdaq had their worst days since the early stages of the Covid pandemic in March 2020.
The Chinese Finance Ministry said this morning the United States committed a “typical act of unilateral bullying” by imposing trade tariffs this week and said it would impose a new tariff of 34% on all U.S. goods from April 10.
Like many nations and multilateral blocs now caught in a trade war with the United States, China said Trump’s plan “not only damages U.S. interests but also endangers global economic development and the stability of supply chains.”
China urged the U.S. to cancel the plan and “resolve trade disputes through consultations in a manner of equality, respect, and reciprocity.”
The federal government will release the latest monthly jobs report today — but in the wake of Trump’s shock announcement Wednesday seeking to disrupt the global economy with broad tariffs on U.S. imports, the new labor market data for March will essentially end up reflecting a different era.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the survey at 8:30 a.m. ET. Estimates from Dow Jones showed forecasts for about 140,000 net new payrolls, compared with 151,000 previously, with the unemployment rate unchanged for the month at 4.1%.
That would still represent a relatively healthy round of hirings, despite large federal job cuts enacted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. According to a separate report released yesterday by the jobs and career consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, DOGE was responsible for about 216,000 reductions in the federal workforce. Challenger uses different data from the BLS to track job changes in the economy, so that number may not be picked up by the federal survey.
But if the general direction of the Challenger numbers is correct, it means that even before Trump’s Rose Garden speech this week, the economy was already showing a more significant slowdown that the new tariffs are likely to only aggravate.
Getty Images
The Chinese Finance Ministry said today it will impose additional tariffs of 34% on all U.S. goods from April 10 as a countermeasure to sweeping tariffs imposed by Trump.
Trump this week officially fulfilled a campaign promise to unleash sweeping tariffs, a move that has sparked fears of a global trade war and prompted a major question about what has become the centerpiece of his economic agenda: What’s his endgame?
In both size and scope, Trump’s ultimate blueprint for global tariffs — a 10% baseline tariff on virtually every country, with higher numbers on countries with which the United States has larger trade deficits — was more than most expected.
It has left global financial markets tumbling and Trump’s Republican supporters trying to thread the political needle of not criticizing him while also understanding the economic peril the tariff plan may usher in ahead of 2026 midterm elections in which the GOP will try to defend its slim House and Senate majorities.
Trump’s team has so far not had a clear message to either explain the strategy behind the tariffs that his political allies can echo or his thought process behind the decision to go much further than even supporters were expecting. What’s more, multiple elements of the sweeping measures made them seem as if the administration rushed through the process.
Reporting from Washington
The fallout from Trump’s aggressive new tariffs has spurred Congress into action, with a growing number of Republicans joining Democrats to express interest in using their power to restrain him.
After the GOP-led Senate delivered a rare rebuke to Trump on Wednesday by voting to undo his tariffs on Canada, lawmakers in both chambers are weighing additional steps to rein him in. Senators are eyeing other mechanisms to rescind Trump’s existing tariffs while limiting his ability to impose new ones. And Democrats in the House are exploring ways to force a vote to revoke Canadian tariffs, putting out feelers to attract support from Republicans.
These efforts have a high bar for success as any resolution to undo Trump’s tariffs, or new law affecting his powers, would have to get around a presidential veto. But the level of support in Congress could affect the president’s political calculus around using taxes on imports to the U.S. as a centerpiece of his agenda.
As countries are reacting to President Trump’s announcements on tariffs, American consumers are bracing for a potential price hike in several products and goods
Trump defended his tariffs to reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday, characterizing his decision to place penalties on imports from more than 180 countries and territories as a negotiating tactic to spur U.S. investments and aid in important business decisions, including the sale of TikTok.
“We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariff?’ The tariffs give us great power to negotiate,” Trump said.
Trump signed an order in January giving TikTok’s Chinese-based owner, ByteDance, until Saturday to sell the platform to a non-Chinese buyer or face a nationwide ban.
Trump told reporters today that “we’re very close to a deal” on TikTok. It is unclear whether Chinese officials have tried to tie the platform to tariffs amid the negotiations over its ownership.
A conservative legal group has filed what it says is the first lawsuit aimed at blocking U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, accusing Trump of exceeding his authority.
The lawsuit, filed yesterday in a Florida federal court by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, challenges Trump’s authority to impose the sweeping tariffs he announced on Wednesday as well as earlier tariffs he imposed on China under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
“By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” Andrew Morris, the group’s senior litigation counsel, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Florida-based retailer Simplified.
The 34% tariff on China that Trump announced Wednesday comes on top of two earlier 10% tariffs, bringing the combined total to at least 54%.
European stocks continued to drop shortly after the market open today, albeit at a much slower rate than yesterday’s huge losses, as investors around the world continue to reassess their trades in the wake of the Trump administration’s announcement of sweeping global tariffs.
The Stoxx Europe 600 — an index of the largest European companies — slipped 0.9%, while the main indexes in Germany, France and the U.K. also fell less than 1%.
In the Asia-Pacific, Japan’s Nikkei 225 led declines in the region, closing the week down 9% for its sharpest drop in more than five years, according to Reuters. Markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were closed for a holiday.
The banking sector is in European traders’ sights this morning, with a basket of financial stocks down 2.8%. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and Barclays all experienced steep drops of as much as 4%.
That’s in part because traders are now expecting lower economic growth following the tariff announcements. That may also lead to interest rate cuts from central banks, which would lower the amount commercial banks can charge customers for holding their money, as well as encourage people to borrow and spend rather than hold their money in banks.
European heavy industry stocks, such as those in companies dealing with oil and gas, chemicals and basic resources, also fell, while U.S. stocks were also expected to open lower after their worst sell-off since the market panic at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
The S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq were all expected to have much shallower opening losses of between 0.3% and 0.6%.
