The Latest: Markets sink as Trump's tariffs roil global trading system

Global markets plunged Monday following last week's two-day meltdown on Wall Street, and U.S. President Donald Trump said he won't back down on his sweeping new tariffs, which have roiled global trade.

Countries are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the tariffs, with China and others retaliating quickly.

Trump’s tariff blitz fulfilled a key campaign promise as he acted without Congress to redraw the rules of the international trading system. It was a move decades in the making for Trump, who has long denounced foreign trade deals as unfair to the U.S.

The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday, ushering in a new era of economic uncertainty with no clear end in sight.

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Here's the latest:

Hong Kong stock market slumps but official warns against drastic action

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan says the current volatility in the market does not warrant any drastic measures to be taken, vowing the city will remain a free port.

After the city’s stock market slumped 13.2% on Monday, Chan told reporters that it was functioning in an orderly manner, with substantial selling and buying interests. But the U.S. tariffs will inevitably cause market fluctuations and retaliatory measures and interest rate policy from other countries will trigger more volatile capital flows.

He blasted the latest U.S. tariffs as “bullying and unreasonable,” saying they have disrupted global supply chains and severely impacted the global economic recovery process.

Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to China in 1997, enjoys semiautonomy that allows its policies and economic system to be different from mainland China’s.

German exports to the US grew in February as firms anticipated tariffs

Germany has reported a large increase in exports to the United States in February, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs.

Germany has Europe’s biggest economy and is a leading exporter. Last year, the United States was its biggest single trading partner for the first time in nearly a decade, displacing China.

The Federal Statistical Office said Monday that Germany’s exports to the U.S. were up 8.5% in February compared with the previous month, at 14.2 billion euros ($15.6 billion). German exports to the entire world, including other EU nations, were up 1.8% in the same period at 131.6 billion euros.

The head of Germany’s exporters association, the BGA, said the February increase “must not deceive us” as the rise in exports to the U.S. was due to “anticipatory effects.”

Dirk Jandura said in a statement that “U.S. firms bunkered and German firms moved deliveries forward.”

He added that “Germany and the EU must quickly find their role in the new world order” and “approach the global South with pragmatic offers.”

Jandura argued that “the sweeping U.S. blow offers a unique opportunity to position Europe as a reliable and trustworthy partner.”

Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader to meet with Trump since the tariff announcement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit since Trump unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.

Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s 17% tariff remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.

Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of his hastily organized Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations, said he expected Trump to use the tariffs as leverage to force out concessions from Netanyahu. Trump may pressure Netanyahu to move toward ending the war in Gaza, at the very least through some interim truce with Hamas that would pause the fighting and free more hostages.

In a preemptive move last week, Israel announced that it was removing all tariffs on goods from the U.S., mostly on imported food and agricultural products.

German economy minister calls US tariffs ‘nonsense’

Germany’s economy minister says the premise of U.S. President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs is “nonsense,” and he is arguing that Europe is in a strong position.

Robert Habeck, who is also vice chancellor in Germany’s outgoing government, said as he arrived at a meeting of European Union trade ministers in Luxembourg Monday that he and his colleagues must act “calmly, prudently but also clearly and with determination.”

He said that means “being clear that we are in a strong position — America is in a position of weakness.” He argued that “we don’t have time pressure now,” but the U.S. does.

Habeck said it’s important for the EU to stick together, arguing that attempts by individual countries to win exemptions haven’t worked in the past. He stressed the importance of trade agreements and contacts with other regions of the world, such as South America, Asia and the Pacific.

The German minister said of Trump’s tariffs that “even the basis of the calculation is nonsense: The assumption that a trade budget surplus or deficit is a problem in itself is a wrong estimation.”

Indonesia says it won't retaliate against Trump's tariffs

Indonesia says it won't retaliate against Trump’s 32% tariff but will pursue diplomacy and negotiations to seek mutually beneficial solutions.

Indonesia, which had an $18 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year, will gather input from business leaders to create a strategy for addressing the tariffs and find ways to reduce the deficit, Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto said Monday.

“We will increase the volume of purchases so that the $18 billion trade deficit can be reduced,” Hartarto said.

China accuses US of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying

China on Monday accused the United States of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying with tariffs.

“Putting ‘America First’ over international rules is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying,” Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters.

Last week, Trump put an additional 34% tariff on Chinese goods, on top of two rounds of 10% tariffs already declared in February and March, which Trump said was due to Beijing’s role in the fentanyl crisis. China and other governments retaliated quickly. China announced its own 34% tariff rate on U.S. goods.

Lin said the new tariffs harmed the stability of global production and supply chains and seriously impacted the world’s economic recovery.

“Pressure and threats are not the way to deal with China. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Lin added.

European shares plunge in early trading

European shares dropped in early trading, with Germany’s DAX falling 6.5% to 19,311.29. In Paris, the CAC 40 shed 5.7% to 6,861.27, while Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 4.5% to 7,694.00.

South Korea's top trade negotiator will visit Washington

South Korea’s top trade negotiator will visit Washington this week to express Seoul’s concerns over the Trump administration’s increased tariffs and discuss ways to mitigate their negative impact on South Korean businesses.

South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Monday that its minister of trade, Inkyo Cheong, plans to meet with various U.S. officials, including U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The ministry says Cheong aims to gather detailed information on the Trump administration’s trade policies and engage in discussions to reduce the 25% tariffs placed on South Korean products.

Chinese officials meet business representatives from Tesla and other US companies

Chinese government officials met business representatives from Tesla, GE Healthcare and other U.S. companies on Sunday. It called on them to issue “reasonable” statements and take “concrete actions” on addressing the issue of tariffs.

“The United States in recent days has used all sorts of excuses to announce indiscriminate tariffs on all trading partners, including China, severely harming the rules-based multilateral trade system,” said Ling Ji, a vice minister of commerce, at the meeting with 20 U.S. companies.

“China’s countermeasures are not only a way to protect the rights and interests of companies, including American ones, but are also to urge the U.S. to return to the right path of the multilateral trading system," Ling added.

Ling also promised that China would remain open to foreign investment, according to a readout of the meeting from the Ministry of Commerce.

Malaysia wants Southeast Asia to present a united response to tariffs

Malaysia’s Trade Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz said his country wants to forge a united response from Southeast Asia to the sweeping U.S. tariffs.

Malaysia, which is the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, will lead the regional bloc’s special Economic Ministers’ Meeting on April 10 in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the broader implication of the tariff measures on regional trade and investment, Zafrul told a news conference on Monday.

“We are looking at the investment flow, macroeconomic stability and ASEAN's coordinated response to this tariff issue,” Zafrul said.

ASEAN leaders will also meet to discuss member states’ strategies and to mitigate potential disruptions to regional supply chain networks.

Pakistan will send a government delegation to Washington

Pakistan plans to send a government delegation to Washington this month to discuss how to avoid the 29% tariffs imposed by the U.S. on imports from Pakistan, officials said Monday.

The development came two days after Pakistan’s prime minister asked its finance minister to send him recommendations for resolving the issue. The U.S. imports around $5 billion worth of textiles and other products from Pakistan, which heavily relies on loans from the International Monetary Fund and others.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange fell rapidly on Monday. The exchange suspended trading for an hour after a 5% drop in its main KSE-30 index.

Mideast markets follow oil prices lower

Middle East stock markets tumbled as they struggled with the dual hit of the new U.S. tariffs and a sharp decline in oil prices, squeezing energy-producing nations that rely on those sales to power their economies and government spending.

Benchmark Brent crude is down by nearly 15% over the last five days of trading, with a barrel of oil costing just over $63. That’s down nearly 30% from a year ago, when a barrel cost over $90.

That cost per barrel is far lower than the estimated break-even price for producers. That’s coupled with the new tariffs, which saw the Gulf Cooperation Council states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hit with 10% tariffs. Other Mideast nations face higher tariffs, like Iraq at 39% and Syria at 41%.

The Dubai Financial Market exchange fell 5% as it opened for the week. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange fell 4%.

Markets that opened Sunday saw losses as well. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul stock exchange fell over 6% in trading. The giant of the exchange, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Aramco, fell over 5% on its own, wiping away billions in market capitalization for the world’s sixth-most-valuable company.

China projects confidence, saying ‘the sky won’t fall'

Beijing struck a note of confidence on Monday even as markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai tumbled.

“The sky won’t fall. Faced with the indiscriminate punches of U.S. taxes, we know what we are doing and we have tools at our disposal," wrote The People's Daily, the Communist Party's official mouthpiece.

China announced a slew of countermeasures on Friday evening aimed at Trump’s tariffs, including its own 34% tariffs on all goods from the U.S. set to go in effect on Wednesday.

Australian dollar drops to levels last seen early in pandemic

The Australian dollar fell below 60 U.S. cents on Monday for the first time since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The drop reflected concerns over the Chinese economy and market expectations for four interest rate cuts in Australia this calendar year, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

“What our modeling shows is that we expect there to be big hits to American growth and Chinese growth and a spike in American inflation as well,” Chalmers said.

“We expect more manageable impacts on the Australian economy, but we still do expect Australian GDP to take a hit and we expect there to be an impact on prices here as well,” he added.

The Trump administration assigned Australia the minimum baseline 10% tariff on imports in the the United States. The U.S. has enjoyed a trade surplus with Australia for decades.

Indian stocks tumble as selling pressure intensifies

Indian stocks fell sharply on Monday, seeing their biggest single-day drop in percentage terms since March 2020 amid the pandemic.

The benchmark BSE Sensex and the Nifty 50 index both dropped about 5% after trading opened but then recovered slightly. Both were later trading down about 4%.

Trump says he’s not backing down on tariffs, calls them ‘medicine’ as markets reel

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he won't back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S., digging in on his plans to implement the taxes that have sent financial markets reeling, raised fears of a recession and upended the global trading system.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he didn’t want global markets to fall, but also that he wasn’t concerned about the massive sell-off either, adding, “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

His comments came as global financial markets appeared on track to continue sharp declines once trading resumes Monday, and after Trump’s aides sought to soothe market concerns by saying more than 50 nations had reached out about launching negotiations to lift the tariffs.

“I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world,” Trump said. “They’re dying to make a deal. And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country. We’re not going to do that, because to me a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or at worst, going to be breaking even.”

Asian markets plunge as tariff fallout intensifies

Asian markets plunged on Monday following last week's two-day meltdown on Wall Street, and U.S. President Donald Trump said he won't back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost nearly 8% shortly after the market opened on Monday. By midday, it was down 6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 9.4%, while the Shanghai Composite index was down 6.2%, and South Korea’s Kospi lost 4.1%.

U.S. futures also signaled further weakness.

Market observers expect investors will face more wild swings in the days and weeks to come, with a short-term resolution to the trade war appearing unlikely.