Trump tariffs live: Asian stock markets tumble at start of Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’

China’s yuan fell to a one-month low against the American dollar this morning, before recouping early losses, just hours before US president Donald Trump’s announcement of tariff plans.

The onshore yuan fell to a low of 7.2733 per dollar in morning deals, the weakest level since 5 March, before giving back losses to trade at 7.2693.

Traders said the moves were modest and market participants didn’t want to get too bearish on the yuan.

The People’s Bank of China set the midpoint rate, around which the yuan is allowed to trade in a 2 per cent band, at 7.1793 per dollar, the weakest level since 20 January.

The central bank has set its official guidance on the firmer side of market projections since mid-November, which analysts and traders see as a sign of unease over the yuan’s decline.

For all their tendency to boom and bust, financial markets are usually adept at second-guessing governments and “pricing in” a range of plausible future scenarios.

Only when such loose assumptions are badly violated do they react violently. Such is the capricious nature of Donald Trump that this is now an occupational hazard.

Not even the most imaginative of market analysts could have foreseen the extraordinary twists and turns in the president’s tariff policies – plural, that is, because they hardly stay still long enough for the world’s customs officials to draw up the new schedules.

Read The Independent’s editorial below:

World leaders are bracing for an escalation in the US trade war with Donald Trump set to unveil a swathe of tariffs on imported goods.

The US president is set to announce a string of fresh tariffs on so-called “Liberation Day” in an effort to increase homegrown production and reduce trade imbalances.

The changes are set to range from levies on countries buying Venezuelan oil to reciprocal tariffs on countries with “unfair taxes” on US goods.

All countries worldwide which trade with the United States are at risk of facing tariffs on Mr Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day”.

The US imported around $3.3 trillion in goods from abroad last year, and latest reports from the Washington Post claim the White House has drafted tariffs “of around 20 per cent on most imports to the United States”.

Alicja Hagopian examines which countries are most at risk from new tariffs.

The Independent’s political editor David Maddox writes:

Another leading trade expert has warned that it will be hard to unwind Donald Trump’s tariffs once they are unleashed.

Chris Southworth, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom, has also warned of dire consequences for the UK car industry which sells 17 per cent of its products to the US.

He said: “There is no avoiding the impact of tariffs given the integrated nature of the UK and US economies. UK auto companies selling cars to the US will feel an immediate impact but more importantly, the scale of tariffs has the potential to wipe out the £9bn headroom the government announced in the Spring Statement.

“Nobody wins from a tariff war. These measures will impact firstly the poorest of American consumers, increasing prices as the increased costs will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

“But if we take a step back from the US consumer and look at where the goods come from this will impact exporters around the world who sell into the US. Around 17% of all cars manufactured in the UK last year went to the US.

“Businesses need certainty to operate, to plan, to invest. If demand for these slow it will certainly impact production, which will then impact jobs and have a ripple effect through the supply chain.

“It’s very difficult if not impossible to mitigate the impact of tariffs once they come into force especially if every country retaliates. Unwinding the tariffs once in place will require a tremendous amount of diplomatic effort all of which diverts resources away from where they should be on working together to solve the issues we all face as a global community.”

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and his rival in a May election, Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, said they would stand up for the country’s national interests in the face of looming US tariffs that could hit Australian beef.Australia has a trade surplus with the US, and a free trade agreement that allows duty-free entry for US exports.

Mr Albanese has said his government won’t retaliate against the Trump administration with reciprocal tariffs.

Toughening his language in an election campaign, Mr Albanese said he would “stand up for Australian interests”, and would not compromise on Australian regulations that are likely to be targeted by the US.

Opposition leader Dutton similarly told reporters: “My job is to stand up for Australians.”

“If I needed to have a fight with Donald Trump or any other world leader to advance our nation’s interests, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Mr Dutton said in a Sky News Australia interview.

Asian stocks stuttered this morning while the safe-haven gold was stuck near record highs as a nervous world awaited details of US president Donald Trump’s tariff plans, with investors fretting about the risks of an intensifying global trade war.

Investor focus in recent weeks has been firmly on the new round of reciprocal levies that the White House is due to announce this afternoon, which are expected to take effect immediately after Mr Trump announces them.

Mr Trump has already imposed tariffs on aluminium, steel, and autos, along with increased duties on all goods from China that have rattled markets amid fears that a full-blown trade war could trigger a sharp global economic slowdown.

Asian stocks fell in early trading, after a choppy US session. Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.3 per cent and South Korea’s benchmark index was 0.57 pr cent lower.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong dropped 0.8 per cent. In mailand China, the CSI 300 Index declined 0.1 per cent.

Goldman Sachs raised the probability of a US recession to 35 per cent from 20 per cent and said it expects more rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, as President Donald Trump’s tariffs roil the global economy and upend financial markets.

The brokerage also lowered the world’s largest economy’s GDP growth forecast for 2025 to 1.5 per cent from 2.0 per cent and projected three interest rate cuts each from the US Fed and the European Central Bank from its previous expectation of two each.

Trump said on Sunday his reciprocal tariffs, to be announced this week, would include all countries and not a more limited number, rattling financial markets globally over fears of an economic slowdown.

In a separate note, Goldman also cut its year-end target for the S&P 500 index for a second time this month to 5,700 from 6,200, the lowest among Wall Street brokerages, followed by Barclays’s target at 5,900.

Sir Keir Starmer is facing an “impossible task” in deciding whether to retaliate to Trump’s looming tariffs, an expert has warned.

Simon Finkelstein, director of geopolitics at the Brunswick Group said “It would be foolish to do so, however, politically it might become untenable not to do so.”

“Fundamentally he’s got an impossible task because the people who work for the President clearly don’t know what he’s going to do on Wednesday either,” he told Times Radio.

“But I think the thing [Starmer] has got to do is continue on the same strategy, which is attempt to negotiate some sort of future deal with the US, whether that looks like something sort of wider range or more limited on technology to mitigate the worst aspects of the tariffs.”

“The UK government has to at least try,” Mr Finkelstein added.

The US State Department has made a rare intervention in British politics, warning of its “concerns about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom”.

The department, responsible for US foreign policy, put a statement on X, formerly Twitter, highlighting fears about the prosecution of anti-abortion campaigner Livia Tossici-Bolt.

It said she faces criminal charges for offering conversation with patients seeking abortions within a legally prohibited “buffer zone” outside a clinic. “We are monitoring her case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression,” the State Department’s dedicated democracy, human rights and labour (DRL) account posted.

It added: “US-UK relations share a mutual respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, as Vice President Vance has said, we are concerned about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.”

Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell has the full report here: