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Donald Trump has vowed to drive a trade war that has threatened to hit China with another 50% tariffs starting Tuesday, causing sharp market sales and fears of a global recession.
Beijing’s president’s broadside became an acute turmoil day in the global stock market as Asian stocks fell and Wall Street’s Blue Chip S&P 500 index was swept across a large range.
Trump said Monday that he will ratchet taxes in China within hours unless he removes retaliation fees announced last week on US products.
“If that tariff is not removed at 12pm by tomorrow, we will exceed the tariffs that are above the 50% tariff,” he said. “They have become a rich country. I have great respect for China, but they can’t do this.”
Additional US collections bring China’s import obligations to more than 120%. This attacks goods from iPhones to clothing and marks a major attack in Trump’s trade war.
Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports last Friday, two days after Trump placed comparable levels of duties on imports from China during the announcement of its “liberation day” last week.
The president’s latest threat came in an era of volatile market trading as investors struggled to analyze mixed signals from the White House about their openness to negotiations, including China.
The S&P 500 closed 0.2% after the wild swing was shut down based on false reports that Trump had decided to suspend his new planned tariff system for 90 days. The index shocked US trading partners with universal tariffs and so-called “mutual” collections, throwing more than 5tn as fast inflation from Wall Street banks slows down economic growth, or causing a complete recession.
Oil and other commodities also hit again on Monday, but European stocks fell sharply, with the Stoxx Europe 600 index falling 4.5% and the FTSE 100 falling 4.4%.
Stocks in Asia have gone wild, with Hong Kong’s Hangsen index falling more than 13%.
In his comments at a joint press conference with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Trump provided some hints on potential deals, but also strengthened warnings to other countries.
“There may be permanent tariffs and there are things that need to be beyond the tariffs, so there are negotiations too,” Trump said.
“We’re going to get fair deals with all countries and good deals. Otherwise we’ll have nothing to do with them, they won’t be allowed to join the US.”
White House officials have repeatedly shown recently that Trump’s priorities are to lower the US trade deficit rather than attacking new deals.
“This is not negotiation,” Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote in a financial era article on Monday. He added countries that the United States hopes to fix the “larger threat” of “non-tariff barriers that continue to suffocate American industries.”
But Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said Monday that the White House was in contact with 50 countries that wanted trade deals.
Trump wrote on his social media platform True Social on Monday morning that talks with other countries “starting soon.”
He later said that the Japanese Prime Minister spoke with Prime Minister Isba. Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent said Trump asked him and US trade representative Jamieson Greer to lead a new negotiation with Tokyo.
Netanyahu and US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick also discussed the new tariff Trump imposed on Israeli imports on Sunday.
“The countries that really used us now say, ‘negotiate’. And when we do, we come out incredibly well. ”
