The Latest: Crushing Wall Street losses as China retaliates and inflation risks grow

World shares slid downward, U.S. futures fell and Wall Street appeared on track for another day of crushing losses Friday as investors counted the potential costs of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest set of tariffs — including China's retaliatory match of a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies has fallen. Even gold, a traditional safe haven that recently hit record highs, pulled lower after Trump announced his “Liberation Day” set of tariffs,’ which economists say carries the risk of a potentially toxic mix of weakening economic growth and higher inflation.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested Friday interest rates will remain unchanged because the tariffs and their likely economic and inflationary impacts are “significantly larger than expected” and are “highly likely” to lead to “at least a temporary rise in inflation.” Trump then sought to pressure the independent agency with a social media post saying: “CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!”

Here's the latest:

California governor hopes trading partners won’t retaliate against his state

“California leads the nation as the #1 state for agriculture and manufacturing — and it’s our workers, families, and farmers who stand to lose the most from this Trump tax hike and trade war,” Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

“To our international partners: As the fifth largest economy in the world, the Golden State will remain a steady, reliable partner for generations to come, no matter the turbulence coming out of Washington. California is not Washington, D.C.”

Under Newsom’s direction, the state will seek “new strategic trade relationships” with key partners, including Mexico, Canada and China, since over 40% of California imports come from the three countries, his office said.

Brazil sees other big trade agreements sidelining the US

Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said Trump’s sweeping tariffs could accelerate the Mercosur–European Union trade agreement, which was signed in December and awaits ratification by each member nation in Europe and South America.

Alckmin — who also serves as Brazil’s minister of industry, development and trade — told the podcast Direto de Brasilia Thursday night that the government will continue to negotiate and doesn’t intend to use a fast-tracked retaliation bill that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has yet to sign.

“It’s a good and necessary piece of legislation, but we don’t intend to use it. What we want to do is engage in dialogue and negotiation,” Alckmin said. “Even though Brazil got the lowest tariff, 10%, it’s still bad. No one wins in a tariff war.”

Democratic leader says Trump’s tariffs trap American families. Republican wants more dealmaking

Sen. Chuck Schumer called them “a brutal pincer movewith American families trapped in the middle.”

“Trump’s tariffs raise costs on one side, and Trump’s budget cuts rob people of health care, nutrition, Medicaid, more on the other, and it squeezes them,” Schumer said.

GOP senate leaders meanwhile gave room for what they hope are presidential parleys with each nation’s leaders.

“The president is a dealmaker if nothing else, and he’s going to continue to deal country by country with each of them,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican who is no. 2 in GOP Senate leadership.

Barrasso said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Senate Republicans this week that the tariffs would be a “high level mark with the ultimate goal of getting them reduced” unless other countries retaliate.

Federal Reserve chair says Trump tariffs likely to raise inflation and slow US economic growth

Jerome Powell said the tariffs and their likely economic and inflationary impacts are “significantly larger than expected” and are “highly likely” to lead to “at least a temporary rise in inflation.”

“Our obligation is to ... make certain that a one-time increase in the price level does not become an ongoing inflation problem,” Powell said in remarks delivered in Arlington, Virginia.

Powell’s focus on inflation suggests that the Fed will likely keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at about 4.3% in the coming months. He emphasized that the Fed will likely stay on the sidelines until the full impact of the tariffs on the economy become clear.

“That just seems like the right thing to do in this period of uncertainty,” Powell said.

Read more about the Federal Reserve chairman’s views on Trump tariffs impact

Federal labor unions sue Trump over union-busting executive order

The federal lawsuit filed in Oakland, California on Thursday challenges his order to end collective bargaining in agencies with national security missions.

The unions say Trump’s March 27 order applies the national security exemption too broadly and seeks to punish them for speaking out against his agenda.

“AFGE is not going to be intimidated by a bully who is throwing a temper tantrum because our union is beating them in the court of law and in the court of public opinion,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The National Treasury Employees Union is challenging the same order in Washington, D.C. federal court, and the Justice Department has a pending suit in the Western District of Texas on behalf of eight federal agencies that want to end their collective bargaining agreements.

Trump pressures Fed chair Powell to cut interest rates

Trump suggested that the stock market turmoil caused by worldwide tariffs makes it the “PERFECT time” for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates.

“He is always ’late, but he could now change his image, and quickly,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

Presidents of both political parties have respected the Federal Reserve’s status as an independent agency, but Trump continues to pressure Powell. Trump nominated Powell in 2017 to serve as chair.

“CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!” he wrote.

US attorney general on MS-13 arrests: ‘We’re coming after you’

Pam Bondi announced federal charges Friday against three men arrested last month in the 2015 killing of a man who was stabbed about 100 times and shot. The cases were reopened in 2020 after going cold.

Bondi joined law enforcement officials in Fort Lauderdale to promote the Justice Department’s efforts to go after the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration has labeled a “foreign terrorist organization” to justify deportations.

“More arrests are coming,” Bondi said. “If you are a gang member living in this country, I’d self-deport right now.”

The announcement comes a week after Bondi lauded the arrest of the alleged East Coast leader of the MS-13 gang.

Trump tariff threatens Madagascar’s vanilla industry

Madagascar’s export-dependent economy now faces one of the Trump administration’s highest tariffs, at 47%. This threatens the Indian Ocean nation’s vital vanilla industry, which exports 70% of its produce to the U.S.

The country’s textile sector, which exports 40% of its total production to US markets, is also bracing for challenging times.

Madagascan ministers are feverishly trying to limit the harm, meeting with U.S. ambassador Claire Pierangelo this week as they try to mobilize “all diplomatic and commercial levers to guarantee fair access” for the nation’s products.

Judge rebukes Wisconsin Democrat’s rapid response to Musk’s millions

The state’s Attorney General Josh Kaul had sued in a last-minute effort to stop Elon Musk from handing out $1 million checks to voters before the state’s Supreme Court election, which was ultimately won by Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford.

Columbia County Circuit Judge Andrew Voigt’s order dismissed Kaul’s lawsuit as “woefully deficient” and said “it is this Court’s opinion that Wisconsin’s system of justice was abused by this case.”

The judge dismissed the case at Kaul’s request after the state Supreme Court rejected it without comment. Musk then gave out checks to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group after Kaul accused him of violating state law by inducing voters with money.

Kaul’s statement Friday says he’s proud of his “rapid action” to “help protect the integrity of the recent election.”

College officials worry crackdown tactics will turn foreign students away

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department, alarmed that the Trump administration’s widening crackdown will persuade sought-after foreign students to stay away from the United States.

College officials say the new, harsher tactics and vague justifications being used to push some students out of the country will have much broader consequences.

America’s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the world’s brightest minds — and they’ve brought important tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U.S. colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.

▶ Read more on the tactics being used to expel foreign students

National Endowment for the Humanities staff getting forced leave notices, sources say

Staff members at the NEH have begun receiving notices that they have been placed on administrative leave, The Associated Press has learned. Just how many employees receiving the notices has yet to be determined, according to two officials with knowledge of the NEH’s operations. The officials were not authorized to discuss the notices and asked not to be identified.

The NEH did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

The NEH, which each year provides hundreds of millions of dollars for educational and cultural projects, has also been sending notices to grant recipients informing them that their funding has been cancelled. The cutbacks follow other Trump administration moves against cultural organizations, including the Kennedy Center, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Smithsonian Institution.

— Hillel Italie

Dow drops another 1,000 points amid global selloff as China matches Trump's tariffs

The S&P 500 dropped 2.7% early Friday, coming off its worst day since COVID wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,000 points, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 3%.

Not even a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market was enough to stop the slide.

European stocks saw some of the day’s biggest losses, and the price of crude oil tumbled to its lowest level since 2021 on worries about how a trade war could cause a recession.

▶ Read more on market reactions to Trump’s global trade war

Harvard gets list of demands as feds threaten billions in funding

The letter asserts that Harvard University has “fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment” and must take immediate action to keep receiving almost $9 billion in federal grants and contracts.

Officials at three federal agencies outlined in the letter to Harvard’s president Thursday demands including a mask ban on campus, clarified restrictions on protests and firmer enforcement of discipline policies, among others. A Harvard spokesperson said the university received the letter.

It’s similar to a demand letter that recently prompted changes at Columbia University under threat of billions of dollars in cuts.

Trump defends tariff moves on social media

Although experts have harshly criticized the president’s economic policies, he’s finding support on TikTok.

He shared a video on Friday morning that said “Trump is crashing the stock market” and “he’s doing it on purpose” as part of “secret game he’s playing, and it could make you rich.”

Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, for the weekend. In another all-caps post, Trump said he would stay the course despite fears about a potential recession.

“TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE. THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!” he wrote.

Later Friday morning, Trump criticized China's decision to match his tariffs with a 34% tariff on U.S. imports.

“CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED - THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!” he wrote in a social media post

Wall Street appears on track for another day of crushing losses

Major U.S. indexes plunged sharply before Friday’s opening bell, then doubled their losses after China matched Trump’s tariffs.

Futures for the S&P 500 fell 3.6% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 3.4%, falling below the 40,000 mark. Nasdaq futures tumbled 4%. That follows Thursday’s wipeout, Wall Street’s worst day in five years.

Markets in Europe were having an even rougher time — by midday Friday, Germany’s DAX had lost 5%, the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 4.2% and Britain’s FTSE 100 gave up 3.8%.

Oil prices fell as much as 8%.

▶ Read more on market reactions to Trump’s global trade war

South Africa plans to diversify exports

South Africa's government said it intends to diversify exports to cushion its economy from unilateral tariff hikes such as the 30% imposed by the U.S. this week.

International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola said the country’s diversification strategy would focus on increasing its exports to Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

“This diversification supports South Africa’s industrial strategy and reduces dependency on single destination markets for our exports or single sources for our intermediate input requirements,” said Lamola.

The U.S. is South Africa’s second largest trading partner after China, accounting for 7.45% of the country’s total exports last year, while South Africa accounted for 0.4% of total U.S. exports. South Africa has also questioned the U.S. calculations that resulted in the 30% tariff.

The tariff announcement follows the freezing of all financial assistance to South Africa through an executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump in February this year.

US tariffs calculations are not based on standard economics, analyst says

A top trade analyst says the Trump administration's calculations that led to the tariffs are “not standard economics” and in many cases impose rates far higher than those that the targeted countries apply to U.S. goods.

Julia Spies, chief of trade and market intelligence at the International Trade Center, said uncertainties remain about the exact way the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and other U.S. officials came up with the tariffs.

She said the figures presented by Trump roughly match the U.S. trade balance — or imbalance — with a specific country, divided by imports from that country, “and that, divided by two, gives us the reciprocal tariff” imposed by the U.S.

“This is not standard economics,” Spies told reporters by video to a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

The U.S. calculation included countries’ tariffs on American exports plus other regulations and policies in those countries, like currency manipulation, sanitary measures, and technical barriers to trade, and “all of that led to this – what they call ‘tariffs’.”

The ITC, based in Geneva, is a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization that aims to help small businesses in the developing world to trade.

China retaliates and announces a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products

China announced Friday that it will impose a 34% tariff on imports of all U.S. products beginning April 10, part of a flurry of retaliatory measures following U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” slate of double-digit tariffs.

The new tariff matches the rate of the U.S. “reciprocal” tariff of 34% on Chinese exports Trump ordered this week.

The Commerce Ministry in Beijing also said in a notice that it will impose more export controls on rare earths, which are materials used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries.

Included in the list of minerals subject to controls was samarium and its compounds, which are used in aerospace manufacturing and the defense sector. Another element called gadolinium is used in MRI scans.

China’s customs administration said it had suspended imports of chicken from two U.S. suppliers, Mountaire Farms of Delaware and Coastal Processing. It said Chinese customs had repeatedly detected furazolidone, a drug banned in China, in shipments from those companies.

Additionally, the Chinese government said it has added 27 firms to lists of companies subject to trade sanctions or export controls.

Among them, 16 are subject to a ban on the export of “dual-use” goods. High Point Aerotechnologies, a defense tech company, and Universal Logistics Holding, a publicly traded transportation and logistics company, were among those listed.

Beijing also announced it filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization over the tariffs issue.

Asian and European shares slide further, US dollar takes a hit

In European trading, Germany’s DAX lost 2% to 21,289.53 after the country reported factory orders were unchanged in February as manufacturers prepared for steeper duties on their exports.

The CAC 40 in Paris slipped 1.6% to 7,478.17 while Britain’s FTSE 100 gave up 1.7% to 8,331.44.

Markets in Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia were closed for holidays, limiting the scope of Friday’s sell-offs in Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 2.8% to 33,780.58, while South Korea’s Kospi sank 0.9% to 2,465.42.

The two U.S. allies said they were focused on negotiating lower tariffs with Trump’s administration.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 2.4%, closing at 7,667.80.

In other trading early Friday, the U.S. dollar rose to 146.46 Japanese yen from 146.06. The yen is often used as a refuge in uncertain times, while Trump’s policies are meant in part to weaken the dollar to make goods made in the U.S. more price competitive overseas. The euro edged lower, to $1.0976 from $1.1055.

China car association says prices will go up

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers called on the U.S. to “correct its wrong actions.” It said the tariffs “will further raise car prices, and impose additional burdens on consumers in various countries including Americans and have a negative impact on global economic recovery.”

China is one of the major exporters of car parts, many used in car repairs. For example, about 6 in every 10 auto replacement parts used in U.S. auto shop repairs are imported from Mexico, Canada and China. The new taxes are also estimated to make cars imported into the U.S. thousands of dollars more expensive.

Chinese industry groups say new tariffs destroyed normal order of trade with US

Chinese industry groups on Friday sharply criticized the U.S. tariffs as well as the closing of the de minimis loophole which had allowed low value goods to be imported tax-free.

“America’s action crudely destroyed the normal order of trade between the U.S. and China, severely impacted cooperation between global industries, and greatly harmed the rights of consumers, including American citizens,” said a statement from the China Light Industry Association, which represents the interests of light manufacturing businesses.

The tax exemption, which applies to packages valued at $800 or less, has helped China-founded e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu to thrive while cutting into the U.S. retail market.

“We call on the international community to jointly resist this trade bullying, and firmly safeguard an equal and mutually beneficial international trade system.”

The China National Textile and Apparel Council chimed in as well, with a statement Friday saying they “supported the Chinese government’s forceful measures” as the U.S. has “Damaged the resilience of the global textile industry’s supply chain."

Vietnam says tariffs fail to reflect the spirit of the comprehensive strategic partnership

Vietnam said it regretted the U.S. decision to impose reciprocal tariff of 46% on its exports to America,

“We believe that the decision is not in line with the reality of mutually beneficial economic and trade cooperation between the two countries,” Pham Thu Hang, the spokesperson for Vietnam’s foreign ministry said Friday in a statement reported by state media.

She said Vietnam had actively engaged with the U.S. to address concerns, promote ties on trade and work towards fair, mutually beneficial trade. She added that it failed to reflect the spirit of the comprehensive strategic partnership that the two countries had signed in 2023.

Former President Joe Biden visited Hanoi when the southeast Asian nation elevated the U.S. to its highest diplomatic status, comprehensive strategic partner. At the time, Biden stressed this showed how far the relationship has evolved from what he described as the “bitter past” of the Vietnam War.

“If enforced, would negatively impact bilateral economic and trade relations as well as the interests of businesses and people in both countries,” said Hang.

The tariffs imposed on Vietnam are among the highest of any country, more than competitors like Thailand and Malaysia. Analysts say that the tariffs will harm Vietnamese export sectors like electronics, textiles, footwear and seafood.

Vietnam will continue discussions with the U.S. to “find practical solutions” for developing sustainable bilateral economic relations that ensure the interest of businesses and people in both countries.

Deputy Prime Minister and former finance minister Ho Duc Phoc is scheduled to visit the U.S. and Cuba from April 6 to 14 to discuss and negotiate on trade matters.

Vietnamese exports to the U.S. in 2024 totally nearly $120 billion, making up nearly a third of the country’s total export turnover.

Taiwan's president will support impacted industries, says tariffs ‘unreasonable’

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said he will offer the “greatest support” to industries impacted by the new tariffs. Lai acknowledged that Taiwan had a trade surplus with the U.S., but that much of it came from Taiwanese industries trying to fulfill the U.S. demand for Taiwan’s information technology products.

“We feel that this is unreasonable and are also worried about the subsequent impact these measures may have on the global economy,” Lai said in a statement on his Facebook page Thursday night.

Lai said he instructed Premier Cho Jung-tai to work closely with industries that are impacted and to communicate with the public about their plans to stabilize the economy.