1 week ago
9
Asia markets index of Japan, South Korea and Australia is seen on a screen as a currency trader works at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. Ahn Young-joon/AP hide caption
toggle caption
Ahn Young-joon/AP
HONG KONG – Global markets continued to fall on Wednesday as President Donald Trump's latest round of tariffs went into effect, including a 104% levy on Chinese goods.
Markets across Asia slumped, with Japan's Nikkei closing down nearly 4%. South Korea's KOSPI fell 1.74% and Taiwan's composite index shed 5.79%. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index opened down more than 3% before recovering to close up about 1%.
In mainland China, key indexes closed up more than 1%, despite Chinese goods being the hardest hit. The steep new levy was a response to Beijing issuing reciprocal tariffs of 34% on American goods last week.
China's foreign ministry warned that it was ready to respond.
"We will not let anyone take away the Chinese peoples' legitimate right to development," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Wednesday.
"We will not tolerate any attempt to harm China's sovereignty, security and development interests. We will continue to take resolute and strong measures to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests.
Beijing has, for now, not announced further retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
There had been rising hopes amongst investors that the U.S. would strike trade deals to lower the tariffs over time.
Trump has signaled he is willing to negotiate, posting Tuesday on Truth Social that China "wants to make a deal, badly."
But analysts remain cautious.
"China's leadership doesn't seem to be in any rush to make a deal," Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, said in a statement.
"They appear to have concluded that they can afford to weather the impact of U.S. tariffs and that Trump will be in a weakened position further down the line as the economic and political fallout from the tariffs mounts."
South Korean officials are currently in talks with the White House. The country's industry minister said on Wednesday that retaliatory tariffs would damage its export-heavy economy.
India also said the country is engaging with the United States. India's external affairs minister said on Wednesday that the two countries are hammering out a bilateral trade agreement, which could conclude by the fall of this year.
John Ruwitch, Se Eun Gong, and Diaa Hadid contributed to this report.
