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Fitch Ratings. The ratings agency said the new tariffs, announced on what is labelled as “Liberation Day” by the US administration, go far beyond what it had previously expected and are already altering the global economic outlook. The tariff regime now imposes a minimum rate of 10% on all US trade partners, with significantly higher levies on 57 selected countries. As a result, the effective tariff rate (ETR) for EU imports into the US has jumped to about 20%, while the rate on Chinese goods has surged to 64%. These figures compare with Fitch’s earlier March assumptions of 15% for the EU and 35% for China. Other Asian economies have also been hit hard. Vietnam now faces a 46% tariff, Thailand 36%, Taiwan 32%, India 26%, South Korea 25%, Malaysia 24% and Japan 24%. Sector-specific exclusions—such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, copper and lumber—may be negotiated separately. Also Read: Recession, not Liberation Day! India, US and world GDP may slump for Trump tariff 'insanity' «We estimate the changes will raise the overall US ETR to about 25%, which would be significantly higher than the 18% we had assumed for 2025 in the March GEO and the highest rate for more than 115 years,» Fitch said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Leaders from Canada, Europe and China are threatening stiff countermeasures against the U.S. in response to President Trump’s surprisingly steep tariffs on nearly all imports.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The global investment landscape is bracing for disruption as the Trump administration rolls out sweeping reciprocal tariffs on nearly all countries. The baseline 10% tariff rate against all countries will go into effect on 5 April.

So, shares of textile makers stood out Thursday, surging as much as 18%, as the 26% tariffs were on home furnishings and readymade garments from India paled in comparison with 54% levies on China, 46% for Vietnam, 37% for Bangladesh, and 30% for Pakistan.

The S&P 500 ended down almost 5% after U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs ignited fears of an all-out trade war and a global economic recession.

Donald Trump presented a rosy assessment after the stock market dropped sharply Thursday over his tariffs, saying, «I think it's going very well.» «The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom,» he said when asked about the market as he left the White House to fly to one of his Florida golf clubs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged over 1,600 points on Thursday, leading a global market selloff after President Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement triggered the sharpest shock since the COVID-19 pandemic. On Wednesday, Trump unveiled a minimum 10% tariff on imports, with significantly higher rates for goods from specific countries like China and members of the European Union. While the move rattled markets worldwide, Trump downplayed the reaction, saying it was expected. Comparing the U.S. to a sick patient needing surgery, he responded to questions about the worst stock market drop in years.

Shares in Australia and Japan fell at the open. US equity-index futures were steady as trading kicked off in Asia after the S&P 500 declined 4.9% on Thursday and the Nasdaq 100 slumped 5.5%, the biggest drop since 2020 for each. The slump wiped out around $2.5 trillion from the US stock market. Oil sold off and the greenback extended its drop on Friday as yields on the 10-year US Treasury hovered around the 4% mark. Markets are closed in China and Hong Kong.

Auto and IT shares were the laggards, while power, pharma and consumption stocks remained steady.

Automobile and ancillaries

The S&P 500 was down 4.2% in afternoon trading, more than other major stock markets, and at its bottom in the morning was on track for its worst day since Covid struck in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,394 points, or 3.3%, as of 2:09 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 5.3% lower.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: Lava, the homegrown smartphone and accessories brand, is in talks with investors to raise up to ₹500 crore ($58 million) in the coming months before pursuing a public listing, a senior company executive said, as the company looks to ramp up its presence in the country. Sunil Raina, executive director at Lava International, did not disclose the valuation for its current funding effort but referred to an earlier attempt.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: US President Donald Trump’s tariff thunderbolt sent shockwaves across world capitals on Thursday, turning the clock back on globalization and raising fears of a tariff war.

Sonia Gandhi termed the Waqf (Amendment) Bill as an assault on the Constitution and as part of BJP's polarisation plank. «Yesterday, the Waqf (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha and today (Thursday), it is scheduled to come up in the Rajya Sabha. The bill was in effect bulldozed through.

Canada and Mexico might have got off (relatively) easy on Donald Trump’s Liberation Day, but for the rest of the world the tariff blow was far worse than expected — and market reaction suggests the biggest loser could be the United States.

United States President Donald Trump Wednesday imposed reciprocal global tariffs on the trading partners that sent shock waves around the world and markets plunging.

Rahul Gandhi on Thursday raised the issue of reciprocal tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump in the House on Thursday and said it will «completely devastate» the Indian economy. Gandhi raised the issue during Zero Hour and said, «Our ally has suddenly decided to impose a 26% tariff, which is going to completely devastate our economy — our auto industry, pharmaceutical industry, and agriculture are all in line.» Trump on Wednesday announced new reciprocal tariffs on several countries, including India, saying that the US has been «looted, pillaged, raped, plundered» by other nations. While the US announcement lists 26% as the tariff levied on India, other documents, including those received by the ministry, show that the rate is actually 27%. Gandhi also claimed that China had taken over 4,000 square kilometres of Indian territory and demanded answers from the government over these issues.

The leaders discussed ways to boost cooperation in areas like trade, investment, tourism, culture, and education, with a focus on linking India's northeastern states with Thailand. «Today, we have decided to elevate our relations to the level of a Strategic Partnership,» Modi said following his talks with Shinawatra in Bangkok on the eve of the BIMSTEC Summit. At a joint press conference after the talks, Modi stated: «In the Indo-Pacific, we both support a free, open, inclusive, and rules-based order.

And he belaboured global trade with them on Wednesday. Much of the planet is in shock. This includes penguins and seals who are the sole inhabitants of Heard and McDonald Islands, an Australian external territory near Antarctica, which has been slapped with a 10% tariff. India is mildly disappointed that its constructive and radical offer to Washington — zero-for-zero tariffs on 70% of manufactured goods — didn't give it a reprieve beyond pharma. But GoI has sensibly taken a 'Keep Calm and Carry On' attitude to what it has come to recognise is a period of geopolitical upheaval, as the US, Russia and China, in their separate ways, disorder the global order.

Trump claims to have fixed tariffs at half the level of those imposed by other countries. Hardly any country has only one tariff on everything. So, presumably, he — or his arithmetically-educated advisers — would have to calculate an average of country tariffs. A simple average would make no sense. Although the assumption that he distinguishes between sense and nonsense would be too strong. So, the average would have had to be weighted by the relative importance of the imported goods. We have no idea how the weights were calculated. USTR has given the formula used to calculate the tariff. But it has a symbol — ε (epsilon) — in it that makes all the difference. It has neither given the symbol’s value, nor how it was calculated. All that Trump has told us is that his closeness to the leader of the exporting country made no difference to the tariff. In other words, the rate of return on our PM’s conviviality has been zero. Should we worry about Trump’s abrupt, startling aggression? The US is our biggest customer among all countries. In 2023-24, it took 17.4% of our exports. Optimists may say that it’s wrong to take physical exports. Our biggest exports to the US have been intellectual services. But that only adds to America’s importance.

non-reciprocal trading arrangement. Here, India has an early mover advantage that it needs to drive home at the earliest. India is among the few countries with which the Trump Administration has already announced and progressed talks on a trade deal. It’s probably the first country to which the USTR has sent delegation to negotiate and by all accounts, the conversation is now at advanced stage. From Trump’s perspective the modification authority clause — Section 4 of the tariff order under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act – provides him with an effective bargaining chip in a trade negotiation. It allows to him raise tariffs and deploy other remedies in case a trading partner were to deploy retaliatory measures. At the same time, it gives him the power to reduce tariffs or limit the scope of duties imposed if the country aligns itself to the US on economic and security matters. Israel, which too has got hit with 17 per cent tariffs despite being among the first to officially cut duties for the US, falls in this category and is likely to benefit from this clause. As for India, a trade deal will open the doors for Trump to make that exception, counting on the overall strategic convergence between both countries across a range of national security issues including critical and sensitive technologies. More importantly, it’s not also in US interests to allow tariffs to impact cooperation in other areas like defence, space and nuclear sectors.

multi-polar world will become a reality faster than anyone had ever expected in the wake of the new tariffs announced by the US, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra said on Thursday. In a post on social media platform X, Mahindra reposted a report of South Korea, China, and Japan, agreeing to cooperate for talks to improve free trade in the region amid concerns over US President Donald Trump's import tariffs, and wrote «the new tariffs announced by the U.S are a signpost of one major geopolitical development». He further said, «The MultiPolar World will now become a reality faster than anyone had ever expected.» The US on Wednesday announced 27 per cent reciprocal tariffs on India — saying New Delhi imposes high import duties on American goods — as the Trump administration aims to reduce the country's trade deficit and boost manufacturing.