Stocks settled decidedly lower after a rapid decline on Friday following President Donald Trump’s threat of higher tariffs on China, in which he accused the country of “becoming very hostile” with its restrictions on rare earth metals, a key resource for the tech and defense industries.
Stocks accelerated selling into the close, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 878.82 points, or 1.9%, at 45,479.60. The S&P 500 lost 2.71% to settle at 6,552.51, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.56% to 22,204.43. The broad-based index’s decline was the largest since April 10. Prior to Trump’s comments, stocks were sizably higher, with the Nasdaq hitting a new all-time intraday high.
“I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” said Trump in a post on Truth Social. “One of the policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America.”
