Trump tariffs dwell: EU votes for retaliatory tariffs on US items whereas China imposes contemporary 84% levy
The European Union member has voted in favour of imposing tariffs on some US imported goods, a statement from the European Commission confirms, with the new tariffs to come into effect from 15 April.
China has said it will impose 84 per cent tariffs on US goods from Thursday, up from the 34 per cent previously announced.
They told the World Trade Organisation on Wednesday that the situation has “dangerously escalated” and expressed “grave concern and firm opposition to this reckless move” from the US.
China had reacted with shock after the Trump administration called its workers “peasants” and slapped the country with an eye-watering 104 per cent tariff on almost all imports.
Donald Trump’s full list of “reciprocal” tariffs has now come into effect, causing Asian markets to tumble on Wednesday as even the US’s closest allies in the region were hit with hefty new duties.
JD Vance made the insulting “peasants” remark in an interview on Fox News last week, in which he complained that America “borrow[s] money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture”.
The escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies has shaken global markets, prompting a widespread sell-off and rattling investor confidence.
FTSE 100 down 2.9 per cent as trading closes
London’s FTSE 100 share index closed at a fresh 13-month low on Wednesday after European markets dropped further following the launch of President Donald Trump’s tariff regime.
The index of top UK stocks finished down 2.92 per cent, or 231.05 points at 7,679.48 for the day.
The mid-cap FTSE 250 index also closed 2.5 per cent lower on Wednesday.
Trump ‘got it very wrong’ over tariffs, says economist used by US president
University of Chicago Economics Professor Brett Neiman, who was also a Biden administration Treasury official, said the Trump administration wildly overcalculated tariff rates placed on nearly all countries that export to the U.S.
The U.S. Trade Representative released its workings and cited a paper produced by four economists, including Prof Neiman, supposedly supporting its approach.
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Spain defends closer trade ties with China after US warns against ‘cutting own throat’
Spain will pursue closer trade ties with China in the interests of its citizens and of the EU, its agriculture minister Luis Planas said on Wednesday, rejecting a U.S. warning that moving closer to the Asian country would be “cutting your own throat”.
“We have excellent trade relations with China which we intend to not only continue having, but expanding,” Planas told reporters from Ho Chi Minh City, where he was accompanying Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez on a trip to Vietnam and, on Friday, China.
Planas had been asked about earlier comments by U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who criticised Spanish economy minister Carlos Cuerpo’s suggestion that Europe should more closely align with China.
“That would be cutting your own throat,” Bessent told a banking event in Washington, adding that China would continue to produce too many goods and dump them on markets elsewhere.
Sanchez and Planas are heading to Beijing later this week to forge closer economic ties amid the global fallout of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, seeking to position Spain as an interlocutor between China and the EU and attract Chinese investment.
Trump not trying to reinvigorate US-Russia trade by sparing Moscow tariffs
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told lawmakers on Wednesday that President Donald Trump was not trying to re-invigorate trade with Russia by sparing Russian goods from reciprocal or baseline tariffs, but it was up to Trump whether to impose any future duties.
Greer told the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee that Russia was excluded from the tariffs because it already was facing heavy U.S. sanctions and sectoral trade embargoes, as were Belarus, Cuba and North Korea.
Republicans in US Congress express concern over impact to pensioners
Republicans in Congress are worried that the market rout sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs is taking a heavy toll on retirees and people approaching retirement age – a critical constituency for their party.
Stocks have plummeted in the week since Trump kicked off a trade war with the U.S.’ major trading partners while Treasuries have also been hit with fresh selling pressure, weighing on the private 401(k) accounts and other investments Americans rely on to fund their retirements.
Some Republican lawmakers have expressed worry this week about the hit to Americans’ investments ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when control of both chambers of Congress will be up for grabs.
“People are going to look at their 401(k) statements. They did vote for President Trump and they voted for me. … I’m just trying to figure out if they are going to feel good about this,” said Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of seven Senate Republicans who have signed on to a bipartisan bill that would give Congress the authority to review and override new tariffs.
Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana expressed similar concern.
“It’s not fun. I don’t like it. I like it when the market goes up,” Kennedy told reporters. He said he wants to give Trump’s gambit a chance, but that the president ought to do a better job of informing the public about his short-term goals.
“We don’t know how long it’ll take (to see positive results), we don’t know what the short-term consequences will be,” Kennedy said. “We don’t know if the medicine will be worse than the disease.”
Rachel Reeves agrees £128m export and investment deal with India
The Chancellor has agreed £128 million worth of new export deals and investments with India.
Rachel Reeves and her Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman signed a joint statement for a package that includes the new deals as well as recent ones worth £271 million after meeting in London.
These include plans for Paytm, India’s largest digital payment app, to invest in the UK and for HSBC Bank to expand its presence to 34 cities in India from 14 currently.
The Chancellor said: “In a changing world, it is imperative we go further and faster to kickstart economic growth.
“We have listened to British businesses, which is why we’re negotiating trade deals with countries across the world, including India, so we can support them and put more money in people’s pockets as part of our Plan for Change.
“Our relationship with India is longstanding and broad and I am delighted with the progress made throughout this dialogue to develop it further.”
US markets hold steady as global markets thrown into turmoil
While most of the rest of the global markets spent today in the red, the US is in the green in early trading – the S&P 500 is 0.5 per cent up, the Dow 0.1 per cent up and the Nasdaq 1.3 per cent up.
The president himself, meanwhile, has taken to social media to suggest “this is a great time to buy” – presumably he’s referencing stocks, rather than products from China – but billionaire investor Bill Ackman isn’t in agreement.
“If the president doesn’t pause the effect of the tariffs soon, many small businesses will go bankrupt. Medium-sized businesses will be next,” he wrote on X.
The Pershing Square Capital CEO added: “Our stock market is down. Bond yields are up and the dollar is declining. These are not the markers of successful policy.”
Tech shares lift Wall Street amid escalating U.S.-China tariff war
Wall Street’s main indexes inched higher on Wednesday as investors lapped up cheaper technology stocks in a choppy session that remained centered on tariff moves as China retaliated with more levies on U.S. goods.
Most megacap and growth stocks rose, with Apple and Nvidia adding nearly 2.5 per cent each and Microsoft up 1.2 per cent. The tech sector was up 1.5 per cent.
“The reflex to buy the dip is very strong and certainly the wipeout you’ve seen in tech stocks makes them cheap relative to where they were,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief strategist at IG.
Despite the early gains, all three benchmarks were down more than 10 per cent from the levels seen before the reciprocal U.S. tariff were announced last week.
EU describe Trump’s tariffs as ‘unjustified’ as they vote for countermeasures
The EU has voted to approve retaliatory tariffs on 23 billion dollars (£18bn) of U.S. goods, describing Trump’s tariffs as “unjustified and damaging”.
The tariffs will go into effect in stages, with some on 15 April and others on 15 May 1 and December. The EU executive commission did not immediately provide a list of the goods on Wednesday.
Members of the 27-country bloc repeated their preference for a negotiated deal to settle trade issues.
The commission said in a statement: “The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy. The EU has stated its clear preference to find negotiated outcomes with the US, which would be balanced and mutually beneficial.”
The head of the EU’s executive commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has offered a zero-for-zero tariffs deal on industrial goods including cars. But Mr Trump has said that is not enough to satisfy US concerns.
Retail firm Walmart aims to keep prices low amid Trump tariff woes
Walmart stuck to its full-year sales and income growth forecasts on Wednesday and vowed to keep prices low, even as U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs fuel fears of a global recession.
The company’s shares, which have fallen nearly 9 per cent since the announcement of a raft of tariffs on 2 April, rose about 5 per cent in early trading.
Walmart, which is the biggest U.S. importer of containerized goods, is at the risk of taking a hit from Trump’s tariffs, mainly on Asian countries that supply everything from clothing to toys to the retailer.
“We’ve learned how to manage through turbulent periods,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said at a two-day investor meeting in Dallas, Texas, that started on Tuesday.
“And while we don’t know everything that is going to happen. We do know what our priorities are, and we know what our purpose is, and we’ll be focused on keeping prices as low as we can,” he said. “And we’ll focus on managing our inventory and our expenses well.”
The company had in February forecast sales for the fiscal year ending January 2026 to rise between 3 per cent and 4 per cent, and annual adjusted operating income to increase between 3.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent.
