Stock market today: Asian shares sag after Trump raises tariffs on auto imports

TOKYO (AP) — Shares sagged Thursday successful Asia, isolated from China, aft President Donald Trump announced helium volition slap 25% tariffs connected imported cars.

Trump said helium was raising duties connected car imports to promote much manufacturing successful the U.S., but the interaction volition beryllium analyzable since U.S. automakers and adjacent overseas manufacturers with factories successful the U.S. root galore of their components from astir the world.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 mislaid 0.6% to decorativeness astatine 37,799.97.

Toyota Motor Corp. banal dove 2%, portion Honda Motor Co. banal dipped 2.5%. Nissan was down 1.7%. Mazda Motor Corp. shares dropped 6%, portion those successful Subaru Corp. slipped astir 5% and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. mislaid 3.2%.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has sought to transportation Trump to exempt Japan from the higher tariffs, and helium reiterated his presumption Thursday.

”We powerfully petition that tariff measures not beryllium applied to Japan,” helium told reporters.

When asked astir imaginable responses, helium said without giving specifics: “All options are people taxable to consideration.“

Ivan Espinosa, who volition go main enforcement astatine Nissan Motor Corp. April 1, told reporters earlier this week that the automaker was considering respective scenarios arsenic what Trump mightiness bash was “fluid.”

Toyota declined comment.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.4% to 2,607.15. Korean automakers besides felt a chill from Trump's announcement. Hyundai Motor Co.'s shares traded successful Seoul mislaid 4.3% portion Kia Corp.'s shares dropped 3.5%.

Shares successful Greater China, isolated from Taiwan, were higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.5% to 23,605.67, portion the Shanghai Composite scale was up 0.2% astatine 3,373.75.

Chinese automakers and parts manufacturers person been expanding income astir the world, but not successful the United States, truthful immoderate interaction from the tariffs announcement would beryllium an indirect one.

But Taiwan's benchmark, the Taiex, sank 1.4%.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.4% to 7,969.00.

The S&P 500 sank 1.1% to 5,712.20 to interruption what had been a tally of calmer trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung from a summation of 230 points successful the greeting to a nonaccomplishment of 132 points, oregon 0.3%, closing astatine 42,454.79.

Weakness for Big Tech sent the Nasdaq composite to a market-leading driblet of 2%, astatine 17,889.01.

The radical of ascendant stocks known arsenic the “Magnificent Seven” has been astatine the halfway of the U.S. banal market’s caller sell-off, which earlier this period took the S&P 500 10% beneath its all-time precocious for its archetypal “correction” since 2023. Big Tech had rocketed successful earlier years amid a frenzy astir artificial-intelligence technology, and critics said their prices roseate excessively rapidly compared with their already rapidly increasing profits.