US: Stocks retreat from records on Trump tariff deluge

Wall Street stocks fell on Monday, retreating from records after President Donald Trump announced fresh tariff threats, reviving anxiety about trade uncertainty.

Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had closed at records last week following solid US jobs data and passage of Trump’s sprawling fiscal passage that extended tax cuts.

But Trump announced plans for 25 per cent levies on Japan and South Korea if the countries don’t reach a deal with Washington, while also warning of another 10 percent tariff on countries aligning themselves with the emerging Brics nations. The moves lifted investor anxiety at a time when some investors have expressed worries about swelling equity valuations.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.9 per cent at 44,406.36.

The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.8 per cent to 6,229.98, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.9 per cent to 20,412.52.

The likelihood that Trump’s statements are a bargaining tactic is one reason losses weren’t “even worse,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers.

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“No one really wants to overreact negatively right now, which is why we’re seeing a bit of a sell-off, but not a major sell-off,” he said.

Trump’s unresolved trade policy has received less attention in recent weeks as Congress weighed the president’s fiscal package, which included controversial cuts to federal health care and other social service programmes.

The clash between Iran and Israel had also overshadowed trade. But trade was always going to come back into focus after the White House set a July 9 deadline to reach agreements. The administration now says it will hike tariffs on August 1 on trading partners that don’t strike a deal.

Among individual companies, Tesla tumbled 6.3 per cent after Trump blasted CEO Elon Musk’s plan to launch a new political party in opposition to the president’s hallmark legislation, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The back-and-forth escalated a conflict between the president and the world’s richest man at a time when investors had hoped Musk would refocus on Tesla and his other ventures and shift attention from politics. AFP