News that a federal court had blocked most of Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs helped stock markets rise yesterday. But now that an appeals court has agreed to a temporary pause in the decision, stocks are starting to fall again.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei index dropped 1.1%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.5%. The mainland Chinese index the SSE Composite fell 0.3%, while South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.9%.
The US dollar has been shaky, too, and is now heading for its fifth consecutive monthly decline as investors brace for more uncertainty around trade.
Trump said on Thursday that he hoped the supreme court would overturn the trade court’s decision, while White House officials have suggested he could pursue other presidential powers to make sure that tariffs take effect.
Despite the uncertainty around Trump’s tariff regime, the White House says that negotiations with its top trading partners continue. The Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said in an interview with Fox News that he is scheduled to have talks with a high-level Japanese delegation later on Friday in Washington.
Trump had already paused his “liberation day” tariff rates on most trade partners for 90 days to 9 July and set a baseline rate of 10% in the meantime while they negotiate new deals.
Earlier this month the US and the UK confirmed they had agreed a trade deal, but no legal text exists yet to bring the concessions into force. The UK has said it wants to accelerate negotiations to conclude the deal with the US. The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, is expected to meet the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, at a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris next Tuesday.
The agenda • 1pm BST: German inflation data • 1.30pm BST: US PCE (Inflation measure) • 3pm BST: University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey
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