A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., April 2, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. stocks fell in after hours trading as President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs of a minimum 10%, but even higher for some countries.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, lost about 2% in after hours trading. The Invesco QQQ ETF, which corresponds to the Nasdaq-100 Index, shed 3.3%. The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) lost 1%.
Shares of companies that are big importers were hit in extended trading Wednesday evening. Nike lost 6%. General Motors tumbled 3%. Shares of hard hit stocks over the past month as tariff fears swirled continued falling in after hours trading. Nvidia and Tesla were each off about 3%.
The White House unveiled a baseline tariff rate of 10% on all countries that goes into effect April 5. Higher duties will be charged against countries that levy higher rates on the U.S.
“We will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us,” said Trump in a press conference from the White House Rose Garden. “So, the tariffs will be not a full reciprocal.”
That halved figure includes “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating,” he said.
Wednesday saw further volatility roil markets as tensions ran high ahead of Trump’s announcement, but stocks ultimately ended the session in the green on hopes maybe the tariff would be less stringent than feared. The S&P 500 closed 0.7% higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 235 points, or 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.9%.
The broad-based S&P 500 was down for five out of the past six weeks because of the heightened uncertainty caused by Trump’s haphazard tariff announcements, which have been rolling out since February. Ongoing tensions with key U.S. global trading partners has started to show up in some sluggish economic data, which further pressured stocks by heightening recession fears.
The S&P 500 crossed briefly again into correction territory on Monday, meaning a 10% slide from its last high, and saw its worst monthly percentage drop since December 2022 in March. The index first slipped into a correction in mid-March.
In February, Trump had announced tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on China, quickly prompting retaliatory tariffs from China and Canada and leading to some deals between the affected nations. He also announced a 25% import tariff on steel and aluminum in February and announced a plan in March to impose 25% tariffs on automobiles and parts now set to take effect on Thursday.
