Global markets in freefall as Trump digs in on tariff ‘medicine’

Al Jazeera :

United States President Donald Trump has brushed off the market turmoil caused by his sweeping tariffs, likening the measures to “medicine” as panicked investors continued a massive sell-off of global stocks.
“I don’t want anything to go down but, sometimes, you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday.
“We have been treated so badly by other countries because we had stupid leadership that allowed this to happen. They took our businesses, they took our money, they took our jobs.”
Digging in on his so-called “reciprocal tariffs”, Trump said he would not back down unless other countries balanced their trade with the US.
The US president said he had spoken with many foreign leaders over the weekend who were “dying to make a deal”.
“I said, ‘We’re not going to have deficits with your country’,” Trump said. “We’re not going to do that, because, to me, a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, going to be breaking even.”
Trump’s comments came as global stocks continued to plummet amid fears of a trade war and economic downturn.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged more than 13 percent on Monday, its steepest decline in nearly three decades.
Taiwan’s benchmark TAIEX dropped 9.7 percent, its sharpest fall on record, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed down 7.83 percent.
In Singapore, The Straits Times Index tumbled more than 7 percent.
South Korea’s KOSPI fell more than 5 percent, while Australia’s ASX 200 closed down more than 4 percent.
European markets continued the sell-off, with the FTSE 100 in London and the DAX in Frankfurt dropping about 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively, in early trading.
US stocks were headed for further steep losses when Wall Street reopens, following a two-day rout last week that wiped out more than $6 trillion in market value.
Futures tied to the benchmark S&P500 were down 2.7 percent on Sunday, while those tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 were down 3.55 percent.
The US began imposing a baseline tariff of 10 percent on imports on Sunday, with steeper duties of between 11 percent and 50 percent set to take effect against dozens of countries on Wednesday. The higher tariffs are set to hit both US rivals and allies alike.
China, the US’s main strategic rival and its third-largest trading partner, is facing a 34 percent tariff, while the European Union, Japan and South Korea are bracing for tariffs of between 20 percent and 25 percent.