SPX: S&P 500 Futures Dive 3% as Trump Slaps the World with Tariffs. Spoiler: It’s Bad

China is about to be charged as much as 54% on its imports into the US. Europe gets 20%. Both are preparing to hit back against the US.

🗽 Tariffs Are Here: They’re Not Friendly

• Futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 fell roughly 3% in after-hours trading following Donald Trump’s widely anticipated tariff announcement. And here it is: a total of 180 countries are getting slapped with a tariff with China’s import duties rising another 34%, on top of the existing 20% levies. That’s 54% extra charges on the world’s largest producer of motor vehicles, chemicals, computers and electronics.
• Trump paid special attention to the European Union, calling its trade practices “pathetic” and imposing 20% tariffs on its imports into the US. The American President labeled those as “kind reciprocal tariffs” after his estimation pointed to 39% tax charges by the EU on US goods.

😨 TARIFFying

• But according to the World Trade Organization, over 70% of the imports to the EU are duty-free and the average tariff is about 2.7%. Needless to say, Europe and China are preparing retaliatory measures to counteract America’s TARIFFying approach to global trade, which by the way hasn’t been this bad since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
• “Now we’re going to charge the European Union. They're very tough. Very, very tough traders. You know, you think of the European Union, very friendly. They rip us off. It's so sad to see. It's so pathetic,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden. The tariffs are set to take effect on April 9.
• “There seems to be no order in the disorder, no clear path to the complexity and chaos that is being created as all US trading partners are hit,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said. She noted that the EU will try to negotiate an agreement but didn’t rule out hitting back with lofty tariffs on US goods.
• China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” its tariff measures and said it will take “resolute counter-measures” to protect its interests in global trade. China called Trump’s move a “typical unilateral bullying practice,” and added that many countries have expressed “strong dissatisfaction and clear opposition.”

🔥 First Reactions: Selloff, Selloff, Selloff

• The broader reaction: it’s a dumpster fire out there. Asian equities fell sharply in regular trading followed by a drop across European bourses. Nothing was spared — from technology stocks to financials and energy companies. The US dollar pulled back on the forex board with the EUR/USD pumping about 1% to cross $1.0930. Gold and Bitcoin also fell.
• The sharp declines reflected investors’ fears that the tariffs will derail global growth, spark a trade war and boost inflation after the Federal Reserve spent a few good years in efforts to stamp it out.