Washington:
The dollar and equity markets tumbled Thursday after President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs salvo against countries worldwide, fanning a trade war that many fear will spark recession and ramp up inflation.
The dollar slumped by as much as 2.6 percent versus the euro, its biggest intraday plunge in a decade, and suffered sharp losses also against the yen and British pound.
On stock markets, Tokyo’s Nikkei briefly collapsed more than four percent and US futures plunged, with major sectors, including auto, luxury and banking, taking big hits.
The Paris stock market led losses in Europe, with falls capped in London as Trump hit Britain less hard than the EU.
Oil prices plummeted around 4.5 percent, while safe-haven gold hit a new peak of $3,167.84 an ounce.
Renewed rate cuts?
“Markets, unsurprisingly have reacted badly,” noted Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at wealth manager Quilter.
“(US) Treasury yields have fallen sharply, as investors take flight and look for safe haven assets.
“This would suggest the Federal Reserve will need to put additional rate cuts on the table to look to prevent recession being triggered, but should it face inflation rising too, it is in somewhat of a bind,” Carter added.
The panic came after the US president unveiled a blitz of harsher-than-expected levies aimed at countries he said had been “ripping off” the United States for years.
The measures included a 34 percent tariff on world number two economy China, 20 percent on the European Union and 24 percent on Japan.
A number of others will face specifically tailored tariff levels, and for the rest, Trump said he would impose a “baseline” tariff of 10 percent, including on Britain.
Auto tariffs of 25 percent meanwhile kicked in Thursday.
Investors are bracing for retaliatory measures, with governments making their anger clear.
China vowed “countermeasures” and urged Washington to cancel the tariffs, while calling for dialogue.
Japan said the move was “extremely regrettable” and could contravene World Trade Organization rules, while Taiwan described the levies as “highly unreasonable”.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen called Trump’s announcement a “major blow to the world economy” but vowed the bloc was “prepared to respond”.
And France said Brussels was “ready for a trade war” and plans to target online services in response.
Thailand said it had a “strong plan” to handle the new US measures and hopes to negotiate a reduction, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned “we are going to fight these tariffs with counter measures”.
Tokyo’s stock market pared its hefty drop but still ended down 2.8 percent, while Hong Kong, Sydney, Seoul, Manila, Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore also fell.
However, Wellington managed to eke out a small gain as New Zealand faced smaller tariffs.
Vietnam’s stock exchange dived 7.8 percent after the country was hit with levies of almost 50 percent.
Wall Street futures were also battered, with the Dow dropping two percent, the Nasdaq plunging more than three percent and the S&P 500 off 2.8 percent off.
Treasury yields hit five-month lows — yields and prices go in opposite directions.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)