The United States’ stock market has shed more than $1.7 trillion in value after US President Donald Trump declined to rule out the possibility the economy could enter a recession this year.
The benchmark S&P 500 on Monday tumbled 2.7 percent, dragging the index nearly 9 percent below its all-time high reached on February 19.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 plunged 3.81 percent, its steepest single-day loss since September 2022.
The losses, which follow two weeks of steep declines, mean that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are now at their lowest levels since September.
Tesla, the electric car company run by Trump’s cost-cutting tsar, Elon Musk, racked up some of the steepest losses among individual firms, plunging 15.43 percent.
Asian stock markets piled on the losses on Tuesday morning, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Taiwan’s TAIEX dropping more than 2.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sliding about 1.5 percent.
The market rout comes as Trump’s back-and-forth tariff announcements have unnerved investors and stoked fears that the economy could be headed for a major slowdown or, at worst, a recession.
In an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday, Trump left open the possibility of a downturn when asked if he expected a recession this year.
“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,” Trump said. “We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing…It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”
“There’s total uncertainty in the market,” Steve Okun, founder and CEO of APAC Advisors in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
“[Trump] has no credibility right now when it comes to tariffs, because of what he has done, in particular with Mexico and Canada. That’s why the markets are reacting the way they are – they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Trump last week slapped a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada and doubled the rate of duties on Chinese goods to 20 percent, only to announce two days later that he would postpone some duties on Mexican and Canadian goods until April 2.
A separate 25 percent tariff on imports of steel and aluminium is set to take effect on Wednesday.
Goldman Sachs economists last week raised its odds of a recession within the next 12 months from 15 percent to 20 percent, while JPMorgan Chase has lifted the probability from 30 percent to 40 percent “owing to extreme US policies.”
‘Indecisiveness, confusion and mixed messaging’
New York Stock Exchange trader Peter Tuchman described Monday’s trading session as a “bloodbath”.
“These stocks are being eaten away and this is obviously all over fear of a recession, right?” Tuchman said in a video posted on X.
“We had a roller coaster last week, we had some up days, we had some down days – and all a function of what is coming out of the Oval Office, which is just complete indecisiveness, confusion and mixed messaging and the investing community losing confidence in the whole situation.”
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who represents the state of Massachusetts, accused Trump of jeopardising the economy with his policies.
“We’re in real economic trouble thanks to the President, and right now, the stock market is a flashing warning light,” Warren said on X.
In a rare note of dissension with Trump among Republicans, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul also raised alarm about the stock rout.
“The stock market is comprised of millions of people who are simultaneously trading,” Paul said on X.
“The market indexes are a distillation of sentiment. When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen.”
In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Kevin Hassett, the head of Trump’s National Economic Council, played down concerns about the health of the economy as “blips in the data”.
“What I think that what’s going to happen is the first quarter is going to squeak into the positive category, and then the second quarter is going to take off as everybody sees the reality of the tax cuts,” Hasset said.
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