US levies now range between 10% and 41%, with China and Mexico’s fate put on ice.<\/p>\n
US president Donald Trump has forged ahead with his tariff agenda, unveiling new levies set to come into effect on 7 August.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s executive order, which was signed last night, outlined updated tariff rates for 67 countries, ranging between 10% and 41%. Countries not listed in the order will face a baseline 10% tariff rate, in line with Trump\u2019s original \u2018Liberation Day\u2019 announcement.<\/p>\n
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: \u201cEquity markets were flashing red as Trump\u2019s tariff regime hits another milestone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact Trump hasn\u2019t chickened out and pushed back the 1 August deadline to 1 September has soured the tone on the market. Europe and Asia were in a grumpy mood and futures prices imply Wall Street will follow suit later today.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, there hasn\u2019t been a repeat of the sharp market sell-off seen immediately after the 2 April \u2018Liberation Day\u2019 speech last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, it\u2019s fair to say there is a broad negative tone at the end of the trading week and recent upwards market momentum has evaporated,\u201d said Mould.<\/p>\n
Canada is one of a handful of countries slapped with a higher levy of 35% \u2013 up from an earlier 25% \u2013 for goods not covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The White House claimed this is in response to the flow of illicit drugs across the northern border.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s prime minister Mark Carney responded that Canada accounts for just 1% of US fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce these volumes.<\/p>\n
Daniel Casali, chief of investment strategy at Evelyn Partners, said the \u201cbig unknown\u201d is what tariff rate China can expect, with a 12 August deadline looming.<\/p>\n
Diplomatic talks between China and the US are ongoing, with meetings held in Geneva, London and Stockholm. China is prioritising securing a continued freeze on US semiconductor export controls, while the US is demanding greater access for American firms, action on fentanyl and increased Chinese purchases of US goods.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mexico has a 90-day extension to negotiate a better agreement.<\/p>\n
Nigel Green, chief executive of deVere Group, said \u201cmultipolarity now defines the direction of global trade\u201d, with the tariffs forcing countries to rewire their trade, capital and strategic priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world is moving toward multiple centres of economic power and influence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Other major trading partners, such as the UK, Japan and the EU secured their own trade agreements with the US in recent weeks, keeping levies to between 10% and 15%.<\/p>\n
Trump is expected, however, to set separate tariffs on imports of pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and critical minerals in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Mould said that pharmaceutical stocks AstraZeneca and GSK could be blamed for the FTSE 100\u2019s decline, noting that investors in the healthcare sector got \u201ca dose of the blues\u201d after Trump wrote to various company bosses outlining how they should cut US prescription drug prices or face a crackdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cWidespread share price declines among pharma stocks are the market\u2019s way of saying it doesn\u2019t like the prospect of Trump effectively declaring war with the sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The tariffs will likely revive fears of renewed price increases for consumers, according to Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG.<\/p>\n
\u201cSigns of reviving inflation have meant that a September rate cut [in the US] looks less and less likely and, with most of the big events out of the way, the time looks ripe for a rerun of last August\u2019s swift outburst of volatility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mould said today\u2019s news is \u201cmerely the next episode in Trump\u2019s tariff story \u2013 it\u2019s unwelcome, hence the market dip; but it\u2019s not entirely unexpected, hence the lack of a full market crash\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US levies now range between 10% and 41%, with China and Mexico’s fate put on ice. US president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84,467,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-38018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-markets","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}