Trump tariff news live: Wall Street drops 4% despite pause on US levies

US President Donald Trump late on Wednesday announced a 90-day tariff pause for most nations after his reciprocal levies triggered a massive trade war, with tensions escalating each passing day. However, Trump said that China won’t be exempted from the tariffs despite the pause.

Trump raised the tariff rate for China to 125%, effective immediately, from the previously announced 104% tariff that had kicked off earlier on Wednesday. This came after China imposed an additional import levy on American goods, imposing an 84% tariff from Thursday.

The US president said in a post on Truth Social that he was pausing his “reciprocal tariffs” on many other trading partners because they had responded by reaching out for talks rather than retaliating, blaming China for having “lack of respect”.

Meanwhile, the 90-day halt on Trump tariffs led the US stocks to surge to one of their biggest gains since World War II. The S&P 500 soared 9.5%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average flew nearly 3,000 points higher, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 12.2%.

Trump tariff’s | Key Points

Donald Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs on countries across the globe last week, with levies ranging from 10 per cent to 49 per cent. His move rattled global markets and sparked the start of a massive tariff and trade war.

Trump’s 26 per cent tariff on India came into effect on Wednesday, with authorities in New Delhi assessing the impact of the US levies.

The trade war between China and the US has triggered fears among people as the two have hit each other with additional and retaliatory tariffs. China first retaliated with 34 per cent tariffs on US goods, following which Trump hit back with 104 per cent levies on Beijing. Again in a tit-for-tat move, China upped the tariff rate on US goods to 84 per cent, prompting the US president to announce a 125 per cent tariff on Beijing effective immediately.

The European Union on Wednesday also announced the approval of tariffs to hit around $23.2 billion of US goods in response to the 25 per cent duties on its steel and aluminium exports.

Late on Wednesday, Trump announced a 90-day pause on all his reciprocal and global 10 per cent tariffs for most countries. The move led the US markets to witness one of their biggest gain days.