Trump’s customs duties crashes around the world: Wall Street and Asia with stock at lowest level

In line with the decision of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, today a new set of customs duties that hit about 60 countries, with a special focus on China, came into force.

These measures have caused serious shocks in the global financial markets, with stock prices falling sharply across Asia, and Wall Street has fallen to the lowest in one year.

On the Asian stock markets, the MSCI index of the Asian-Pacific stocks was minus nearly 2 percent this morning. The Japanese Nikei index fell more than 4 percent, while Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia’s indexes fell between 1.6 and 1.9 percent. Although the Chinese stock markets in Shanghai saw a slight increase, investors were clearly distressed by the introduction of additional customs.

Market unrest has spread to Europe and the United States. The futures indices in Europe and Wall Street entered the red zone, with Eurostox futures fell over 3.5 percent, while Nasdag and S&P 500 dropped by over 1.5 percent.

On Wall Street all the main indexes have fallen. The S&P 500 index fell 1.57 percent, dropping to the lowest level since April last year, while Nasdag lost 2.15 and Down Jones 0.84 percent. The S&P 500 is now 19 percent below the highest record level in February. Since last Wednesday, when Trump announced additional customs duties, the index lost more than 12 percent, which is a loss of market value of companies and banks of about $ 5,800 billion.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Central Bank has allowed the yuan to fall to its lowest level since September 2023, which Trump used to blame Beijing for currency manipulation. However, he expressed confidence that China would eventually seek an agreement.

Oil markets also responded negative – the price of a barrel of crude oil on the London market fell 4.14 percent to $ 60.25, while 4.55 percent dropped on the US market to $ 56.90.

And while US and Asian stock markets are falling, European stock markets have seen strong growth yesterday – investors hope that US and European Union negotiations on customs can bring a positive outcome. London’s FTSE rose 2.71 percent, Frankfurt Dax 2.48 percent, and Parisian Cac 2.50 percent.