Tariff news: Stocks in Asia plunge, Wall Street futures down sharply, extending slide sparked by President Donald Trump's tariffs
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BANGKOK — Asian shares nosedived in local-time Monday morning trading after the meltdown Friday on Wall Street over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes and the backlash from Beijing.

U.S. futures also signaled further weakness. The future for the S&P 500 lost 4.2% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 3.5%. The future for the Nasdaq lost 5.3%.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost nearly 8% shortly after the market opened. An hour later it was down 7.1% at 31,375.71.

South Korea’s Kospi lost 5.5% to 2,328.52, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 tumbled 6.3% to 7,184.70.

Oil prices sank further, with U.S. benchmark crude down 4%, or $2.50, at $59.49 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up $2.25 to $63.33 a barrel.

Currencies also saw big moves.

The U.S. dollar fell to 145.98 Japanese yen from 146.94 yen. The yen is often viewed as a safe haven in times of turmoil. The euro rose to $1.0967 from $1.0962.

On Friday, Wall Street’s worst crisis since COVID slammed into a higher gear. The S&P 500 plummeted 6% and the Dow plunged 5.5%. The Nasdaq composite dropped 5.8%.

The losses came after China matched President Donald Trump’s big raise in tariffs announced last week, upping the stakes in a trade war that could end with a recession that hurts everyone. Even a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market, usually the economic highlight of each month, wasn’t enough to stop the slide.

So far there have been few, if any, winners in financial markets from the trade war. Stocks for all but 14 of the 500 companies within the S&P 500 index fell Friday.

China’s response to U.S. tariffs caused an immediate acceleration of losses in markets worldwide. The Commerce Ministry in Beijing said it would respond to the 34% tariffs imposed by the U.S. on imports from China with its own 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products beginning April 10, among other measures.

The United States and China are the world’s two largest economies.

The central question looking ahead is: Will the trade war cause a global recession? If it does, stock prices may need to come down even more than they have already. The S&P 500 is down 17.4% from its record set in February.

Trump seemed unfazed. From Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, he headed to his golf course a few miles away after writing on social media that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH.”

The Federal Reserve could cushion the blow of tariffs on the economy by cutting interest rates, which can encourage companies and households to borrow and spend. But the Fed may have less freedom to move than it would like.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that tariffs could drive up expectations for inflation and lower rates could fuel still more price increases.

“Our obligation is to keep longer-term inflation expectations well anchored and to make certain that a one-time increase in the price level does not become an ongoing inflation problem,” Powell said.

Much will depend on how long Trump’s tariffs stick and what kind of retaliations other countries deliver. Some of Wall Street is holding onto hope that Trump will lower the tariffs after prying “wins” from other countries following negotiations.

Trump has said Americans may feel “some pain” because of tariffs, but he has also said the long-term goals, including getting more manufacturing jobs back to the United States, are worth it.

On Wall Street, stocks of companies that do lots of business in China fell to some of the sharpest losses.

DuPont dropped 12.7% after China said its regulators are launching an anti-trust investigation into DuPont China group, a subsidiary of the chemical giant. It’s one of several measures targeting American companies and in retaliation for the U.S. tariffs.

GE Healthcare got 12% of its revenue last year from the China region, and it fell 16%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell, but they pared their drops following Powell’s cautious statements about inflation. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.01% from 4.06% late Thursday and from roughly 4.80% early this year. It had gone below 3.90% in the morning.

Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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