Trump reside: Apple and Tesla shares drop in wake of ‘Liberation Day’ as Republicans defy president over tariffs

Along with tech goliath Apple, Tesla stock also slumped in after-hours trading on Wednesday following Trump’s tariff announcement on a day he has long billed “Liberation Day.”

Shares of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company plunged about eight percent in after-hours trading.

Business owners reacted with shock and concern on Wednesday to the sweeping series of tariffs Donald Trump announced on all U.S. trading partners.

Despite the Trump administration framing the measures as a way to bolster U.S. manufacturing, those within American industry warned the tariffs might do the opposite.

“Manufacturers are scrambling to determine the exact implications for their operations,” National Association of Manufacturers president and CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement on Wednesday. “The stakes for manufacturers could not be higher.”

Other industry leaders had a similar outlook, Josh Marcus writes. Read more below:

“China urges the U.S. to immediately cancel unilateral tariff measures and properly resolve differences with trade partners through equal dialogue,” China’s commerce ministry in a statement to Agence France-Presse.

“For Australia, these tariffs are not unexpected but let me be clear — they are totally unwarranted. Trump referred to reciprocal tariffs. A reciprocal tariff would be zero not 10 percent. The admin’s tariffs have no basis in logic and they go against the basis of our two nations’ partnership,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said during a news.

“Free enterprise and competition have laid the foundations of the West’s success. That’s why Americans can listen to music on Swedish Spotify and we Swedes can listen to the same music on our American iPhones. This is why I deeply regret the path the US has embarked upon, seeking to limit trade with higher tariffs,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said.

“As a small country, we just want to survive. If he valued human rights and democratic principles, he would never mistreat small countries,” Cambodian People’s Party spokesperson Sok Eysan told the New York Times.

“My priority, and that of the government, is to protect Irish jobs and the Irish economy. And we will work with our companies, multinational companies and Irish companies, to navigate the period ahead,” Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin wrote on X.

President Donald Trump has privately told Cabinet members that Elon Musk will step back from his role in the administration soon, according to several reports.

Musk, who has been leading the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce and budget drastically, will soon step into a supporting role, anonymous Trump insiders told Politico and ABC News. Trump discussed this with Cabinet members at a March 24 meeting, Politico reports.

The tech mogul is officially designated as a “special government employee,” which means his role expires after 130 days. That would mean the role ends in late May or early June, but many expected the White House to extend the role or find another way to keep him in a front-line position, ABC News reports.

Katie Hawkinson reports from Washington D.C.

Donald Trump’s latest batch of global tariffs sent shockwaves through markets, seeing Apple stock slide more than six percent in late-night trading Wednesday.

The president announced that blanket 10 percent tariffs on all countries and much higher levies on “worst offenders” such as China and Taiwan.

The majority of Apple’s devices are manufactured in China and other Asian countries.

Stocks broadly got hit by Trump’s announcement with the S&P 500 plunging 2.8 percent, while the Nasdaq 100 lost more than 3 percent, according to exchange-traded funds tracking the markets.

Nevertheless, Trump praised Apple – along with other tech goliaths including Meta and Nvidia – for investing in the U.S.

“Apple is going to spend $500 billion, they never spent money like that here,” Trump said. “They’re going to build their plants here.”

Four Republicans joined every Democratic senator in a resolution Wednesday to oppose President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canada, Washington Bureau Chief Eric Garcia writes.

Senators voted 51-48 to reject the national emergency Trump declared earlier this year to justify slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.

The vote followed Trump’s announcement of his “Liberation Day” tariffs, a series of across-the-board levies of at least 10 percent on all nations.

Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine joined Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who crafted a resolution to oppose Trump’s tariffs with Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia.

Donald Trump imposed tariffs on uninhabited islands home to penguins and seals and a U.S. military base on Wednesday.

The president imposed tariffs on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean.

The mostly barren UNESCO World Heritage site was featured on Trump’s list of areas that now face a minimum of 10 percent tariffs on U.S. imports, along with mainland Australia.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.