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US President Donald Trump has confirmed that he has no plans to suspend global tariffs, despite another day of turbulence in global stock markets.
When asked by a reporter in the Oval office whether he would be open to a pause in tariffs to allow for negotiations, Trump responded: “We’re not looking at that. We have many many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us and they’re going to be fair deals and in certain cases they’re going to be paying substantial tariffs.”
Trump's comments follow a day of big swings on the US stock market after the US President threatened to further raises to tariffs, despite the clear desire from Wall Street for him to take the opposite approach.
The S&P 500 ended the day down 0.2%, after a series of dramatic reversals as investors tried to decipher Trump's ultimate goals in his trade war.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 349 points, or 0.9%, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.1%.
All three indexes started the day sharply lower, with the Dow sinking by as much as 1,700 points following even steeper losses abroad. However, in an unexpected twist, it rebounded to a gain of nearly 900 points by late morning. The S&P 500, on the other hand, surged from a 4.7% loss to a 3.4% gain, a shift that would have marked its biggest rally in years.
The sudden rally was sparked by a false rumour that Trump was contemplating a 90-day tariff pause - a claim that the White House quickly dismissed as "fake news" on X.
The fact that such a rumour could shift trillions of dollars in investments highlights how much Wall Street hopes Trump might ease up on tariffs.
Stocks soon turned negative again, and not long after, Trump reaffirmed his stance, indicating he might increase tariffs on China in response to the country's retaliatory measures last week.
In Europe, the biggest stock markets all closed more than 4% down, with Spanish financial experts saying there are strong reasons to fear a global recession after the Ibex 35 index closed with a 5.12% drop.
On the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the DAX opened just below 18,500 points shortly after 9 a.m., marking a drop of more than 2,000 points from Friday's level. However, as the trading day progressed, the DAX managed to recover a substantial portion of its losses, and by around 1 pm, it was down approximately 4.5%.
Panic spread across the Warsaw Stock Exchange just after 9am, with the main index, along with similar indicators in other European markets, plummeting by about 6%. This exceptional drop drew attention to concerns over President Trump's tariffs and their potential to severely impact the global economy, with losses ranging from 3% to 9%.
However, after the initial wave of nervous selling, the market began to stabilise over the next few hours. The early panic subsided, and several of the largest companies even posted gains.
By midday, around 1 pm, conditions on the Warsaw Stock Exchange had improved considerably, with the WIG20 index - the key benchmark for the Polish stock exchange -narrowing its losses to just 1%.
