Jae C. Hong/AP Images
President Donald Trump dons a red "Make America Great Again" hat
Stocks fell sharply Thursday after Bloomberg reported the Trump administration could follow through with tariffs on roughly $200 billion worth of Chinese imports as soon as the public comment period ends next week. A rally in technology stocks had helped bring stocks to record highs in the four previous sessions.
Here's the scoreboard:
Dow Jones industrial average: 25,951.92 −172.65 (-0.66%)
S&P 500: 2,902.05 −11.99 (-0.41%)
Nasdaq Composite: 8,076.91 −32.77 (-0.40%)
Another round of US tariffs would bring the running total of targeted Chinese products to $250 billion and is poised to affect consumers more than the levies already enacted.
Beijing, which was swift to counter Trump's tariffs with its own tariffs on US products, would almost certainly retaliate. While China doesn't import enough from the US to match the duties dollar-for-dollar, it could increase tariff rates or use qualitative measures like creating administrative headaches for American companies.
Shares of large-cap industrial stocks like Caterpillar (-2%) and Boeing (-1.2%) were among the losers following the report. Offshore, the Chinese yuan sank 0.7% against the dollar, and Treasury yields edged lower.