Shares slide as new US import taxes loom

US stocks have followed falls seen in Asia and Europe after US President Donald Trump suggested that new tariffs will hit all countries.

Trump’s comments came as he prepares to unveil a massive slate of import taxes on Wednesday, in what he has called America’s “Liberation Day”.

These will come on top of Trump’s recent import taxes on aluminium, steel and vehicles, along with increased levies on all goods from China.

The tougher stance from Trump has increased nervousness about a trade war hitting the global economy, and US S&P 500 share index fell more than 1% in early trade on Monday.

“You’d start with all countries,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Essentially all of the countries that we’re talking about.”

But he said his administration would be “far more generous” and “kinder” than the countries had been to the US.

The UK has said it expects to be affected by US tariffs and is not ruling out retaliating.

The prime minister’s official spokesman has said talks on an economic deal between the two countries have been “constructive”, but are likely to last beyond Wednesday,

Other jurisdictions, such as the European Union and Canada, have already said that they are preparing a range of retaliatory trade measures.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, recently told the Fox Business channel the tariffs would focus on 10 to 15 countries that have the worst trade deficits with the US, but did not name them.

Trump sees trade taxes – which in this case would be paid by the US companies importing goods – as a way of protecting the American economy from unfair competition and as a bargaining chip for getting better trading terms.

Concerns about a trade war are unsettling markets and creating fears of a recession in the US.

On the US stock market, shares in tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, and Meta all dropped in early trading on Monday, while Elon Musk’s electric car firm Tesla saw its shares fall 6.8%.

Earlier on Monday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark share index had closed more than 4% lower, while the Kospi in South Korea ended down 3%.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 index was down by about 1%, while Germany’s Dax index and France’s Cac 40 were both about 1.7% lower.

The price of gold rose to another record high, hitting $3,128.06 an ounce. Gold is often seen as a safer investment when the economic backdrop is unstable and share prices are falling.

Shanti Kelemen, chief investment officer at M&G Wealth, told the BBC there could be “quite a lot of uncertainty” for a while given that previous tariff announcements have seen a lot of changes subsequently.

She added that Japan was “pretty exposed in terms of having a really big exporting market”.

“They have a lot of automakers and also a very big presence in the semiconductor market, something that hasn’t really been targeted yet but that could change.”

Over the weekend Trump’s advisers echoed his view that the planned tariffs could raise trillions of dollars and help create jobs in the US.

His top trade adviser, Pete Navarro, pointed to huge revenues he said the tariffs would raise.

The tax on all car imports could raise $100bn (£77.3bn) a year, Mr Navarro said. All the planned tariffs could raise $600bn annually, about a fifth of the value of total goods imports into the US, he added.

A White House fact sheet published last week suggested a 10% tariff on every import could create nearly three million US jobs.

However, there are concerns that tariffs could fuel inflation – something Trump pledged to reduce during his presidential campaign – if companies choose to pass on the higher cost of importing goods to their customers.

If companies absorb the cost, if could hit profit which in turn could affect investment.

Will Butler-Adams, chief executive of Brompton Bicycle, which makes folding bikes, said US tariffs were creating uncertainty.

While Brompton’s products are not facing additional taxes yet, he said the people interpreting the tariffs are trying to establish how much steel in products might have come from outside the US.

“The reality is we don’t [know] actually and the people who are on the borders importing goods into the US don’t actually entirely understand how some of these tariffs might be put in,” Mr Butler-Adams said.

About 10% of Brompton’s sales come from the US, but Mr Butler-Adams said if tariffs are imposed “it is going to make our product less competitive”.

“We won’t continue to invest in the same way that we are now. We may even shrink, in the extreme we might pull out.”

Separately, Trump said a deal with TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the app would be agreed before a deadline on Saturday.

He set the 5 April deadline in January for the short video platform to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the US on national security grounds.

It had been due to take effect that month to comply with a law passed under the Biden administration.

Additional reporting by Dearbail Jordan and Mitchell Labiak