By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Major stock indexes and the dollar eased on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed his latest trade threats, recommending 50% tariffs on European Union imports from June 1 and considering a 25% tariff on any Apple iPhones made outside the U.S.
Shares of Apple fell 3% in late afternoon New York trading, while the three major U.S. stocks indexes were weaker but well off session lows. European shares ended lower.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.83% to 99.08, with the euro up 0.74% at $1.1364 and the dollar down 1.07% against the Japanese yen. For the week, the dollar is down 1.5%, on track for its biggest weekly percentage decline since mid-April.
Government bonds in the United States and Europe climbed on safe-haven buying after sustaining heavy pressure this week from rising concerns about Trump’s tax cuts and the White House’s ballooning debt pile.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network: “The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with.”
This was the latest event in a jittery week for global markets after Moody’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating late last Friday and the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved Trump’s sweeping tax cuts on Thursday.
“Tariffs are back at the forefront,” said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president and advisor for Wealthspire Advisors in Westport, Connecticut.
“I think the 25% tariffs on iPhones and Apple was a little bit of a surprise. It seemed like there was going to be an exemption there, and the market is reacting more to that than the EU news, and is interpreting that as a hardening of the stance by President Trump and the administration as opposed to seeking a negotiating path.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 147.48 points, or 0.35%, to 41,711.61. The S&P 500 dropped 26.30 points, or 0.45%, to 5,815.71 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 147.13 points, or 0.78%, to 18,778.60.
All three major U.S. stock indexes were down more than 1% early in the day.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe dropped 1.08 points, or 0.12%, to 869.93. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.93%.
The White House paused most of the punishing tariffs Trump announced in early April against nearly every country. He left in place a 10% baseline tax on most imports, and later reduced his massive 145% tax on Chinese goods to 30%.
“Markets go through a cycle with tariffs – freak out and sell when they are announced …, freak out and buy (when) they are paused,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Virginia.
The new tax-cut bill is expected to add almost $4 trillion to the U.S. federal government’s $36 trillion debt pile.
The 30-year Treasury yield, which had hit 19-month highs early on Thursday, fell in response to fresh tariff fears.
The benchmark U.S. 10-year note yield fell 4.4 basis points to 4.509%, from 4.553% late on Thursday. The 30-year bond yield fell 3.3 basis points to 5.0311%.
Gold, which has surged in recent months as economic anxiety has risen, was higher. Spot gold rose 2.14% to $3,364.74 an ounce.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York, with additional reporting by Naomi Rovnick in London and Saeed Azhar in New York and Stella Qiu in Sydney; Editing by Amanda Cooper, Alex Richardson and Richard Chang)
