The worldwide stock market has been rocked by Trump’s tariff rant. On Monday morning, stock markets throughout Asia plummeted, with many touching lower circuits, following China’s announcement of a 34% retaliatory tariff over the weekend, which sparked the trade war.
Japan’s bank stock indices dropped as high as 17%, while the Nikkei plummeted 9% in the morning. At 31,318.79, the index was down 7.3%. The index’s 225 constituent equities were all trading in red.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 8% while South Korean shares fell to their lowest level on Monday in more than 17 months, which temporarily put a pause on trading amid tariff concerns.
A trading halt was triggered on the KOSPI right after the market opened, stopping program trading for five minutes. This was the first time this happened since August 5, 2024.
South Korea‘s finance minister said on Monday that the country will prepare support measures for industries that require urgent help, ahead of the 25% tax that President Trump proposes to apply on imports from South Korea starting Wednesday.
Investors shifted their funds to safer currencies like the yen and Swiss franc on Monday, according to Reuters. The market crisis that resulted in losses of about $6 trillion last week also severely damaged the Australian and New Zealand dollars. This resulted from rising fears of a worldwide recession, particularly in the US.
After hitting a five-year low earlier, the Australian dollar lost 0.73% to $0.6001, while the New Zealand dollar fell 0.75% to $0.5554.
