Global stock markets were steady on Tuesday as investors awaited the next moves from Donald Trump, after the president announced tariff rates for more than a dozen of the US’s trading partners.
On Wall Street the S&P 500 edged higher at the open, after falling nearly 1 per cent on Monday.
As countries raced to respond to Trump’s renewed threats, the EU said it hoped to sign a temporary deal with the US this week that would keep tariffs at 10 per cent.
But Germany’s finance minister warned that the bloc stood ready to impose retaliatory measures against the US if the two parties failed to reach a “fair” deal.
Both Japan and South Korea indicated they would try to negotiate, after they were included in letters sent by the US president to 14 trading partners on Monday setting out the tariffs that would come into effect on August 1. The White House has said more letters will be sent this week.
Speaking late on Monday, Trump left the door open for negotiations. He also extended the deadline for the tariffs to go into effect by three weeks to just after midnight on August 1.
This week’s move comes after a 90-day pause on the “reciprocal tariffs” announced by Trump on “liberation day” was set to end on July 9.
Investors were “taking the view that nothing is final and that these letters merely mark another iteration on the journey towards trade deals”, analysts at ING noted.
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On Wall Street the S&P 500 index rose 0.1 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3 per cent.
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In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 was flat and the FTSE 100 edged up 0.2 per cent in afternoon trading.
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In Asia, Japan’s Topix closed up 0.2 per cent and South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.8 per cent.
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The US dollar index, which tracks the US currency against a basket of peer currencies, rose 0.4 per cent.