Asian, European markets rebound, US futures edge up amid Trump tariff turmoil
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(SEOUL) — Asian markets opened up on Tuesday after posting significant losses on Monday driven by President Donald Trump’s global tariffs campaign, with U.S. futures also rising slightly after a day of turmoil on Wall Street.
As of early Tuesday morning, Dow Jones futures were up almost 2%, S&P 500 futures were up more than 1.5% and Nasdaq futures were up 1.3%.
Japan’s Nikkei index closed just over 6% up on Tuesday, recovering some of almost 8% of losses posted on Monday.
South Korea’s KOSPI index rose by 0.3%, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 grew by 2.2% and India’s NIFTY 50 index climbed almost 2%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index — which on Monday posted its worst day since 1997 losing 13% — rebounded with a 1% rise on Tuesday. Shanghai’s Composite Index grew 1.4%.
European markets also edged into the green after a tumultuous start to the week. The British FTSE 100 picked up 1.3% shortly after opening, Germany’s DAX gained 0.9% and France’s CAC 40 rose 1.3%.
Monday’s rollercoaster trading saw the Dow post its largest intraday point swing ever — falling more than 1,700 points during its Monday session low, then swinging up 2,595 points from the low.
The Dow dropped 349 points, or 0.91%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq ticked up 0.1%. The S&P 500 closed down 0.23%. Its 8.5% high/low spread has only happened 20 other times since 1962, according to S&P Global.
The S&P 500 briefly entered bear market territory during the session but was last off nearly 18% from its recent high.
ABC News’ Max Zahn and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — After days of market tumult, President Donald Trump on Wednesday makes good on his long-sought goal of imposing aggressive tariffs against dozens of U.S. trading partners.
But his gamble comes with major political risks for his legacy amid mounting concerns from Republicans and business leaders that’s he’s making a mistake by going too far in exacting economic retaliation.
Chief among his new trade moves is a hefty 104% tariff rate on China, which was set to go into effect with the rest at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday.
Trump has painted what he calls “reciprocal” tariffs as retribution for a grievance he’s held for “35 years” — that the U.S. is being “ripped off” by trade imbalances.
“Nobody but me would do this,” he said in the Oval Office on Monday. “You know it would be nice to serve a nice, easy term. But we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade.”
On Tuesday night, on the eve of realizing what he’s said he considers one of his crowning political achievements, he boasted in freewheeling remarks to congressional Republicans, “I know what the hell I’m doing. I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass. They are. They are dying to make a deal.”
“Many countries have ripped us off left and right. But now it’s our turn to do the ripping,” he continued.
By doing so, he’s moving full steam ahead on a campaign promise that turned real on April 2 in a flashy event in the White House Rose Garden — a move prompting economic and political backlash.
U.S. markets experienced their worst week since the coronavirus pandemic, with trillions lost in retirement and college savings accounts in just 48 hours after Trump’s tariff announcement. Looking ahead at potential future fallout, economists increased their odds of a recession this year.
Stocks rallied early Tuesday amid optimism on the administration beginning negotiations with various countries, but turned back into red territory before day’s end as the world braced for the additional Trump tariffs soon being put in place.
China — the world’s second-largest economy behind the U.S. — says it’s ready to “fight to the end” on Trump’s tariffs.
Up on Capitol Hill, some Republicans started to express increasing anxiety about the president’s approach.
“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, pointedly asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as he testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Trump’s agenda.
Tillis and other GOP members of the panel joined Democrats in questioning why the administration’s refused to consider exemptions on certain goods critical to American industries, such as farming and garment manufacturing.
“I’m somewhat disappointed to hear that exclusions of some of these things are being ruled out at this point in time,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Greer.
Greer defended Trump’s policies as he noticeably sidestepped questions from Democrats on how much “short-term pain” American consumers can expect to face from higher prices and inflation.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday found that a majority (57%) of American adults oppose Trump’s new tariffs.
“These measures are aimed squarely at achieving reciprocity and reducing our massive trade deficit to restore production in the United States,” Greer told lawmakers. Greer said Trump was “fixed in his purpose” on the issue when asked if he’d reverse course if inflation rose as a result.
The White House has said nearly 70 countries have reached out to Trump officials to talk about tariffs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on Tuesday morning that agreements with some big trading partners could happen “very quickly.”
But at the podium later that afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to provide any timeline for when Trump would like to see deals completed, only that he is moving at “Trump speed.”
“The president likes to get things done, but he’s very much focused on ensuring that these deals are good for the American worker, they are good for American manufacturing, and again, that they tackle these crippling deficits with these countries,” Leavitt said, adding that these will be “tailor-made” agreements for each nation rather than wholesale changes.
(WASHINGTON) — Some 5 million Americans with defaulted student loan payments will have their loans sent for collections on May 5, the Department of Education announced on Monday.
Next month, for the first time since student loan payments were paused due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Education Department will collect the debts from borrowers who had defaulted — which means they hadn’t paid their debts for around nine months or 270 days — before the pandemic.
The announcement comes as scores of Federal Student Aid (FSA) employees have been terminated at the Department of Education as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to shutter the agency, which creates uncertainty for borrowers and the future of the student loan system, according to former Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal.
“The concern is that the department is, you know, cutting the people who would help borrowers make this transition,” Kvaal told ABC News. “Borrowers who are trying to get help by getting into an affordable repayment plan or by applying for loan forgiveness, if they’re eligible, you know, just don’t have the same resources that they did before the department staff was cut in half.”
The pause — started in 2020 in Trump’s first administration — for all 43 million student loan borrowers was implemented due to the economic hardship and disruption caused by COVID. This will be the first time in five years the repayments have begun.
Kvaal said defaults can be “tragic” for borrowers. In some cases, Kvaal said, defaults can negatively impact credit scores and future student aid, and several states revoke driver’s licenses over defaults.
However, the department emphasized that its effort will protect taxpayers from shouldering the cost of federal student loans that borrowers “willingly” undertook. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon also said taxpayers will no longer be responsible for the “irresponsible student loan policies” of the previous administration.
“The Biden Administration misled borrowers: the executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear,” McMahon wrote in a department release. “Hundreds of billions have already been transferred to taxpayers. Going forward, the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Treasury, will shepherd the student loan program responsibly and according to the law, which means helping borrowers return to repayment — both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation’s economic outlook.”
A defaulted loan is a loan that a borrower hasn’t made payments on for 270 days, according to the office of federal student aid. When the loan officially enters default, it becomes eligible for mandatory collections.
The collections on loans are typically done through wage garnishments, a legal procedure in which a person’s earnings are required by court order to be withheld by an employer for the payment of a debt, according to the Department of Labor.
Student debt can also be collected through offsetting tax refunds or other federal benefits, which Kvaal said can include one’s Social Security. The collections process starting in just two weeks is blocking these borrowers’ path out of default, according to Student Borrower Protection Center Executive Director Mike Pierce. Pierce said the Trump administration is feeding them into the “maw of the government debt collection machine.”
“This is cruel, unnecessary and will further fan the flames of economic chaos for working families across this country,” Pierce told ABC News in a statement.
But the administration’s efforts to place borrowers into involuntary collections programs will be paired with a comprehensive communications and outreach campaign to ensure borrowers understand how to return to repayment or get out of default, according to the department release.
The news also comes as the administration is working to rehome the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to other agencies. Trump announced the loan system would be moved to the Small Business Administration “immediately” during a White House event last month.
After the announcement, Kvaal, who worked in senior roles in the Obama and Biden administrations, told ABC News his higher education portfolio under Obama included moving some loan functions to the Department of Treasury. But he warned shifting the student loan portfolio again could lead to real world consequences.
“We’re at a point now where millions of borrowers are late on their student loans,” he said. “For the department to be focused on laying off half its staff and going through a fundamental reorganization of how it administers these programs, you know, in really critical weeks for borrowers who are trying to get into repayment plans or get loan forgiveness, I think it’s very dangerous and puts at risk millions of borrowers of going into default on their loans.”
(NEW YORK) — Foreign markets saw a wave of selloffs on Monday morning ahead of the expected introduction of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Wednesday, measures the president said will impact “all countries.”
Japan’s Nikkei index fell more than 4% and South Korea’s KOSPI slipped 3% after opening on Monday. In Europe, the British FTSE 100 fell by 1.18%, the German DAX index fell by 1.82% and France’s CAC 40 dropped by 1.76%.
Gold — a traditional safe-haven asset — reached a new record high of $3,128 per ounce.
U.S. markets will open Monday morning after tumbling at the end of last week. The Dow Jones closed 1.7% down on Friday, the S&P 500 down 1.97% and the Nasdaq Composite down 2.7%.
Trump told reporters this weekend that his tariffs could affect “all the countries.”
“The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America,” he said.
“Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has never been ripped off in history and we’re going to be much nicer than they were to us, but it’s substantial money for the country,” Trump said.
Auto tariffs of 25% are among those expected to come into effect on April 3. The measures will apply to imported passenger vehicles, including cars, SUVs, minivans, cargo vans and light trucks, according to a White House statement released last week.
Analysts widely expect the tariffs to raise prices for foreign-made cars, since importers will likely pass along a share of the tax burden to consumers.
Cars produced in the U.S. are also expected to undergo significant price hikes since manufacturers will bear higher costs for imported parts and face an uptick in demand as buyers seek out domestic alternatives, experts have told ABC News.
Trump dismissed concerns about auto tariffs this weekend. “The automakers are going to make a lot of money,” he said. “American automakers or international automakers, if you’re talking about them, are going to build in the United States.”
“The people that are going to make money are people that manufacture cars in the United States,” he continued. “Outside of the United States, that’s going to be up to them. I don’t care too much about that. But you have a lot of companies coming into the country to manufacture cars.”
ABC News’ Max Zahn and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
