Trump tariffs live updates: FTSE opens sharply down after Asian markets plummet over trade fears

The FTSE 100 is still dropping – now drops more than 3 percent.

Only five minutes after opening on Monday morning, the British benchmark has already dropped 3.15 percent.

Business and Geled Editor Karl Matchett writes:

While another week on the stock markets kicks in equipment, there will be no surprises about the direction that almost everyone is heading: downward.

Verse of enormous overnight drops in the Asian markets – the hanging Seng with a massive 12 percent in Hong Kong – we can expect to see the FTSE 100 and 250 drop as soon as it opens soon, although it is not that big.

Banks and finances were hammered on the London Stock Exchange last week, but few generally the Sharp Falls escaped and it looks more the same today.

The FTSE 100 index will be open in a few minutes.

The United Kingdom’s benchmark has sunk nearly 5 percent on Friday in the worst day of trading since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index has dropped more than 12 percent in the morning trade, which, if sustained, would provide the largest daily fall of the benchmark since the global financial crisis in 2008.

China’s CSI300 Blue Chip index has dropped more than 5 percent with the sale in almost every sector, while the Yuan of China has dropped to the lowest value since January and bonds have risen sharply. Beijing faces a joint rates of 54 percent on US exports, and announced retaliation measures on Friday – which was a public holiday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell nearly 9 percent after the market opened in Tokyo. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 has dropped more than 6 percent, while the Kospi of South Korea lost 4.4 percent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell more than 12 percent in the morning trade.

If sustained, it will be the largest daily decline of the benchmark since the global financial crisis in 2008.

US President Donald Trump has warned foreign governments that they will have to pay ‘a lot of money’ to lift the rates, characterize the duties as ‘medicine’ and activate further massacre over the global financial markets on Monday.

Asian stocks have generally sunk and US stock market futures have traded sharply lower as investors feared that Trump’s rates could lead to higher prices, poorer demand and possibly a global recession.

Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday and indicated that he was not concerned about losses that had already wiped out trillions of dollars’ value from the stock markets around the world.

“I don’t want anything to go off. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something, ‘he said as he returned from a weekend of golf in Florida.

Trump said he spoke to leaders from Europe and Asia over the weekend, hoping to convince him to lower rates to 50 percent due to operation.

“They come to the table. They want to talk, but there is no talk unless they pay a lot of money every year,” Trump said.

Hong Kong’s stock market is one of the worst hits today, with the Hang Seng index falling by 12.7 percent this afternoon.

Hong Kong has been on track for the largest daily fall of the benchmark since the global financial crisis in 2008.

On the continent, the Shanghai composite index fell by 6.34 percent during the opening trade.

President Donald Trump is not deliberately trying to collapse the stock market, said Director of the White House National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett.

Hassett spoke on ABCs this week this week, saying that the stock market accident after Mr. Trump’s tariff announcement “wasn’t a strategy”.

He was questioned about it after Mr. Trump shared a video on the social media platform Truth Social who claims that the president is dropping the markets as part of a larger economic plan.

Mr. Hassett insisted: ‘He doesn’t try the market tank. He is trying to deliver to American workers. This is not a strategy for the markets to fall. “