The reaction to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs announcement didn’t take long to hit the United States stock market, with Dow Futures plummeting over 1,000 points by Wednesday evening.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1,100 points or 2.7%. S&P 500 futures lost 3.9% and Nasdaq-100 futures tumbled 4.7%.
While Trump said the tariffs would free the U.S. from dependence on foreign goods, fears of a deepened international trade war appeared to be reflected in the stock market in the immediate aftermath.
Nike and Apple’s shares dropped 7%, and Amazon fell more than 5% while Nvidia saw 4.5% losses and Tesla was down 6% on Wednesday.
The shares of American companies that depend largely on imported products tumbled the farthest, with Dollar Tree down 11% and Five Below seeing 15% losses.
During the event at the White House on Wednesday, Trump unveiled a sweeping set of baseline tariffs on all trading partners and what he described as “kind reciprocal” tariffs on nations he claimed were the worst offenders in trade relations with the U.S.
“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day,” Trump said from the Rose Garden. “April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” he said.
The president announced the measures would include a minimum baseline tariff of 10% on all trading partners and, further, more targeted punitive levies on certain countries, including China, the European Union and Taiwan.
Trump held up a chart with a list of nations and what the new U.S. tariffs against them will be.
At the top was China, which Trump said was set to be hit with a 34% tariff rate as he claimed it charged the United States 67%.
The 34% reciprocal rate for China is in addition to a previous 20% tariff Trump slapped on the nation — bringing the effective tariff rate on one of the U.S.’s biggest trading partners to 54% total.
While the longstanding effects of Trump’s newly minted tariffs stand to be seen, some experts told ABC News ahead of Wednesday that the measures could threaten economic growth and employment since duties slapped on imports risk increasing costs for businesses that rely on raw materials from abroad.
“If both businesses and consumers start to worry and pull back their spending, that is what can tip the U.S. over into a recession,” Kara Reynolds, an economist at American University, previously told ABC News.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, described the tariffs as “the fodder for an economic downturn.”
ABC News’ Max Zahn contributed to this report.
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