Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cautioned that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are unprecedented in modern history and that their consequences “remain highly uncertain.” US equities slumped on Wednesday. The Dow fell 1.73%, or 700 points. The S&P 500 as a whole dropped 2.24%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 3.07%.
Powell stated at a Chicago event that the number of tariff hikes announced thus far is far more than expected. The economic implications, which will include slower GDP and greater inflation, are probably going to be the same.
Powell’s remarks are in line with worries that have surfaced in recent weeks as firms and consumers struggle with Trump’s tariffs. According to Commerce Department data, Americans hurried to beat Trump’s huge tariff rises, and as a result, spending at US shops increased in March at the highest monthly rate in over two years.
After the chipmaker said that it would suffer a $5.5 billion loss due to the US government imposing additional limits on the sale of its AI processors to China, Nvidia (NVDA) fell 6.87% on Wednesday.
Another development in the escalating struggle between the US and China for supremacy in AI is the export ban on Nvidia. Since January, when the upstart DeepSeek surprised Silicon Valley with its less expensive, ChatGPT-like AI approach, which has sparked an AI boom in China, that competition has intensified.
Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer for the Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a note on Wednesday that “the brinkmanship between the US and China looks set to continue in the near term, even though we expect that trade talks will ultimately yield progress.
Also Read:
Key Trends Developing in Global Equity Markets
The ECB identifies Trade Tariffs and the Competitiveness Gap as Growth Threat
