Britain this morning became the latest nation forced to take a dose of Donald Trump‘s economic ‘medicine’ as the FTSE 100 tanked on opening.
Amid massive hits to Asian markets overnight London followed suite this morning in the wake of the US president’s decision to levy import taxes on friends and foes alike last week.
The FTSE 100 opened down 241.88 points – 3 per cent – at 8am, having seen its worst day since the pandemic on Friday.
Despite increasingly alarmed warnings, including from allies in the United States, Trump has likened his move to an unpleasant cure for illness.
‘Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,’ he said of the market pain last night.
He denied he was intentionally engineering a market selloff and insisted he could not foresee market reactions, saying he would not make a deal with other countries unless trade deficits were solved.
Meanwhile in the UK, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said global tariffs are ‘bad news’ when asked if the world was heading towards a global recession.
Gas guzzling supercars are set to be exempted from the 2030 ban on new petrol vehicles as ministers scramble to help companies hit by the tariff war.
Despite increasingly alarmed warnings, including from allies in the United States, Trump has likened his move to an unpleasant cure for illness.
Amid massive hits to Asian markets overnight London followed suite this morning in the wake of the US president’s decision to levy import taxes on friends and foes alike last week.
Meanwhile in the UK, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said global tariffs are ‘bad news’ when asked if the world was heading towards a global recession.
Ms Alexander told Sky News: ‘It’s bad for global demand, it’s bad for prices and it’s bad for consumers, and so that is why we have to do everything that we can to protect the interests of the British people and British businesses.
‘And that is why we are setting out a package of support today for the car industry to provide certainty to British manufacturers and to ensure that they can remain at the cutting edge of the transition to electric vehicles, and also make sure that consumers can benefit from the cheaper running costs of electric vehicles as well.
‘And so that’s why the Prime Minister has been clear that we need to do absolutely everything we can as a government to shelter British businesses from these global economic headwinds.’
The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow — the three main U.S. stock market indices — are on course to open Monday morning down as much as 6 percent. Analysts fear last week’s $6.6 trillion wipeout was just the beginning.
In early Monday morning trading in Asia — Sunday night US time – Japan’s Nikkei cratered as much as 8 percent. Australia was down 6 per cent, South Korea 5 per cent, Taiwan almost 10 percent, Singapore 8.5 percent, Hong Kong 10 per cent and China almost 5 percent.
CNBC host and market analyst Jim Cramer warned that the US could be barreling toward another Black Monday.
The 1987 crash — a 22.6 percent drop in a single day — remains the worst in modern market history, far eclipsing the chaos of 2008 or even the Covid crash.
‘If the president doesn’t reach out and reward countries and companies that follow the rules, then the 1987 scenario… where we dropped for three days and then plunged 22 percent on Monday, becomes highly relevant,’ Cramer said during his show on Saturday.
