Asia spent Monday looking for comparisons to a historic market drop, after President Donald Trump affirmed that the U.S. wanted “medicine” to repair its persistent commerce deficit, whilst his “Liberation Day” tariffs ship markets off a cliff.
Is Monday’s market plunge the worst because the onset of the COVID pandemic? The worst because the Nice Monetary Disaster of 2008? Or, for some markets, is it the worst…ever?
As of the mid-afternoon native time, Hong Kong’s benchmark Hold Seng Index was down by round 12.5%, its worst decline since 2008 and near wiping out its good points for 2025. Tencent, China’s most beneficial firm, is down by over 12%. PC producer Lenovo fell by over 22%, the biggest drop by a World 500 firm based mostly within the Asia-Pacific area.
China’s CSI 300, which tracks firms traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen, fell by 7.1%.
Ache was unfold throughout the area. Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunged by over 7.8% on Monday, its third day of steep losses since Trump introduced 24% tariffs in opposition to the nation. South Korea’s KOSPI index fell 5.6% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 is down by 4.2%. India’s NIFTY 50 is down by round 4.5% as of early afternoon, India time.
Taiwan halted buying and selling after declines triggered the alternate’s circuit breaker nearly instantly after markets opened. The island’s benchmark TAIEX index dropped by 9.7%; TSMC, Asia’s most beneficial firm, plunged 10%, wiping $74 billion from the chipmaker’s market worth in a matter of minutes.
By the mid-afternoon native time, Singapore’s Straits Instances Index is down by round 8%, with DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest financial institution, falling by over 9.5%. The plunge within the STI is nearing the index’s document 8.3% drop from 2008, in the course of the World Monetary Disaster.
Damaging sentiment is prone to proceed into the U.S. S&P 500 futures are at present down by 4.9%, whereas Nasdaq 100 futures are down 5.6%, placing the U.S. on observe for a bear market.
No ‘suspending’
On Sunday, Trump instructed reporters that he needed the U.S. commerce deficit “solved” as a part of any take care of China. He additionally shrugged off investor worries, which have dragged the S&P 500 down by 10.5% since April 2.
“Overlook markets for a second—now we have all the benefits, ”Trump mentioned. “I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,”
Different members of the president’s internal circle steered that the White Home will persist with tariffs. “There is no postponing,” commerce secretary Howard Lutnick mentioned on CBS Information’s Face the Nation, in response to a query as as to if Trump may delay his new tariffs.
Messaging from Trump administration officers was usually confused. On NBC’s Meet the Press, treasury secretary Scott Bessent mentioned that over 50 nations had approached the U.S. to start out negotiations, and steered Trump had created “maximum leverage” for a deal.
Since April 2, a number of Asian economies, together with Vietnam, Taiwan and Cambodia, have supplied to cut back, if not take away, their tariffs on U.S. imports. But Peter Navarro, a senior commerce advisor to the president, steered {that a} easy zeroing out of tariffs wouldn’t be sufficient to fulfill the administration.
“If you simply lowered our tariffs and they lowered our tariffs to zero, we’d still run about a $120 billion trade deficit with Vietnam,” Navarro mentioned on Fox Information. “The problem is all of the non-tariff cheating that they do.”
Beijing punches again
Monday can be the primary buying and selling day since Beijing imposed a 34% tariff on all U.S. imports, in retaliation to Trump’s “Liberation Day” taxes. China’s retaliatory measures go into impact on April 10, the day after Trump’s tariffs start.
Beijing additionally slapped export controls on a spread of uncommon earth minerals, launched new anti-monopoly probes into U.S. industries, and likewise added a number of firms to its “unreliable entities” blacklist.
Steep U.S. tariffs, in addition to the tip of the de minimis exemption, are prone to damage China’s financial system, notably these sectors that depend on the U.S. client market. HSBC estimates that U.S. tariffs might cut back China’s GDP development by 1.5 proportion factors.
Nonetheless, economists counsel that China is well-prepared for its second commerce tussle with Trump. “China has spent years preparing for a potential escalatory trade war scenario,” Zoe Zongyuan Liu, a senior fellow for China research on the Council on Overseas Relations, mentioned on Bloomberg on Monday.
Beijing is prone to stimulate home consumption and increase into new markets past the U.S. China plans to make consumption a “major driver and ballast” for financial development, the state-owned Individuals’s Every day wrote in a front-page editorial on Monday.
Different international locations, like Australia and Singapore, are publicly disillusioned however holding off on retaliatory measures for now. And a few, just like the Philippines, see comparatively decrease U.S. tariffs as a possibility to take market share from rivals.
Japan and South Korea are additionally planning to contact the U.S. to ask for a discount within the tariff fee. “We must make it clear that our country is not doing anything unfair,” Japan Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba mentioned to the nation’s parliament on Monday.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
