(NEW YORK) — U.S. stocks plunged in early trading on Thursday, just hours after President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs announcement touched off threats of countermeasures from foreign leaders.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,100 points, or 2.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 4.3%.
The S&P 500 tumbled 3.3%, setting it on pace for its worst trading day in more than two years.
The selloff hammered shares of some major multinational corporations with supply chains abroad.
Nike plummeted 11%, while Apple fell nearly 8%. E-commerce giant Amazon slid 6%.
Shares fell for each of the other so-called “Magnificent Seven,” a group of large tech firms that helped drive stock market gains in recent years.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, dropped 7%. Chipmaker Nvidia slid 4.5%.
Tesla, the electric carmaker led by Trump-advisor Elon Musk, declined 4%.
Shares of U.S. retailers that depend largely on imported products also tumbled, with Dollar Tree down 11% and Five Below seeing 25% losses.
While Trump said the tariffs would free the U.S. from dependence on foreign goods, fears of a deepened international trade war appeared to influence the stock market reaction.
During the event at the White House on Wednesday, Trump unveiled a sweeping set of baseline tariffs on all trading partners and what he described as “kind reciprocal” tariffs on nations he claimed were the worst offenders in trade relations with the U.S.
“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day,” Trump said from the Rose Garden. “April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” he said.
The president announced the measures would include a minimum baseline tariff of 10% on all trading partners and, further, more targeted punitive levies on certain countries, including China, the European Union and Taiwan.
Trump held up a chart with a list of nations and what the new U.S. tariffs against them will be.
At the top was China, which Trump said was set to be hit with a 34% tariff rate as he claimed it charged the United States 67%.
The 34% reciprocal rate for China is in addition to a previous 20% tariff Trump slapped on the nation — bringing the effective tariff rate on one of the U.S.’s biggest trading partners to 54% total.
While the longstanding effects of Trump’s newly minted tariffs stand to be seen, some experts told ABC News ahead of Wednesday that the measures could threaten economic growth and employment since duties slapped on imports risk increasing costs for businesses that rely on raw materials from abroad.
“If both businesses and consumers start to worry and pull back their spending, that is what can tip the U.S. over into a recession,” Kara Reynolds, an economist at American University, previously told ABC News.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, described the tariffs as “the fodder for an economic downturn.”
ABC News’ Max Zahn contributed to this report.
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