New York: Global markets plunged Monday following last week’s two-day meltdown on Wall Street, and US President Donald Trump said he won’t back down on his sweeping new tariffs, which have roiled global trade.
Countries are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the tariffs, with China and others retaliating quickly.
Trump’s tariff blitz fulfilled a key campaign promise as he acted without Congress to redraw the rules of the international trading system. It was a move decades in the making for Trump, who has long denounced foreign trade deals as unfair to the US.
The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday, ushering in a new era of economic uncertainty with no clear end in sight.
Hong Kong stock market slumps but official warns against drastic action Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan says the current volatility in the market does not warrant any drastic measures to be taken, vowing the city will remain a free port.
After the city’s stock market slumped 13.2 per cent on Monday, Chan told reporters that it was functioning in an orderly manner, with substantial selling and buying interests. But the US tariffs will inevitably cause market fluctuations and retaliatory measures and interest rate policy from other countries will trigger more volatile capital flows.
He blasted the latest US tariffs as “bullying and unreasonable,” saying they have disrupted global supply chains and severely impacted the global economic recovery process.
Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to China in 1997, enjoys semiautonomy that allows its policies and economic system to be different from mainland China’s.
Germany has reported a large increase in exports to the United States in February, ahead of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs.
Germany has Europe’s biggest economy and is a leading exporter. Last year, the United States was its biggest single trading partner for the first time in nearly a decade, displacing China.
The Federal Statistical Office said Monday that Germany’s exports to the US were up 8.5 per cent in February compared with the previous month, at 14.2 billion euros (USD 15.6 billion). German exports to the entire world, including other EU nations, were up 1.8 per cent in the same period at 131.6 billion euros.
The head of Germany’s exporters association, the BGA, said the February increase “must not deceive us” as the rise in exports to the US was due to “anticipatory effects.”
Dirk Jandura said in a statement that “US firms bunkered and German firms moved deliveries forward.”
He added that “Germany and the EU must quickly find their role in the new world order” and “approach the global South with pragmatic offers.”
Jandura argued that “the sweeping US blow offers a unique opportunity to position Europe as a reliable and trustworthy partner.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit since Trump unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s 17 per cent tariff remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of his hastily organised Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkiye ties and the International Criminal Court.
Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel relations, said he expected Trump to use the tariffs as leverage to force out concessions from Netanyahu. Trump may pressure Netanyahu to move toward ending the war in Gaza, at the very least through some interim truce with Hamas that would pause the fighting and free more hostages.
In a preemptive move last week, Israel announced that it was removing all tariffs on goods from the US, mostly on imported food and agricultural products.
Indonesia says it won’t retaliate against Trump’s 32 per cent tariff but will pursue diplomacy and negotiations to seek mutually beneficial solutions.
Indonesia, which had a USD 18 billion trade surplus with the US last year, will gather input from business leaders to create a strategy for addressing the tariffs and find ways to reduce the deficit, Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto said Monday.
“We will increase the volume of purchases so that the USD 18 billion trade deficit can be reduced,” Hartarto said.
South Korea’s top trade negotiator will visit Washington this week to express Seoul’s concerns over the Trump administration’s increased tariffs and discuss ways to mitigate their negative impact on South Korean businesses.
South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Monday that its minister of trade, Inkyo Cheong, plans to meet with various US officials, including US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
The ministry says Cheong aims to gather detailed information on the Trump administration’s trade policies and engage in discussions to reduce the 25 per cent tariffs placed on South Korean products.
