STOCK markets across the globe have soared following President Donald Trump's announcement that he would pause tariffs on most nations for 90 days.
The S&P 500 was up 8% on Wednesday afternoon trading and is heading towards one of its best days in decades.
The market had been down earlier the same morning amid worries about whether Trump’s trade war would drag the global economy into a recession, along with China boosting taxes on US imports to 84% while vowing to “fight to the end”.
Both Canada’s and Mexico’s key stock market indexes have also rallied following Trump’s announcement, as they have been confirmed to be included in the flat rate of 10% tariffs from the US.
Canada’s TSX was up 3.78% shortly after the announcement after starting the day down 0.4%.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s IPC was also sharply up 2.90% after Trump broke the news after being 0.22% down.
The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that Trump was pausing his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on most of the country’s biggest trading partners, but maintaining his 10% tariff on nearly all global imports.
Amid a global market meltdown, the move was seemingly an attempt to narrow what had been an unprecedented trade war between the US and most of the world to one between the US and China.
Trump said on social media that import tariffs on goods from China would surge to 125% “effective immediately”.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 2665 points, or 7.1%, shortly after the news, with the Nasdaq composite 10.3% higher.
The US Treasury Secretary said that the markets “didn’t understand” Trump’s tariff strategy.
He told reporters at the White House: “The market didn’t understand, those were maximum levels. The countries can think about those levels as they come to us to bring down their tariffs, their non-trade barriers.”
He said Trump “created maximum negotiating leverage for himself” and the Chinese have “shown themselves to the world as the bad actors”.
