Shares in car companies have fallen after Donald Trump announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on cars from overseas last night.
The latest eruption in the Trump trade wars has hit investor confidence, and angered US trading partners around the world.
In Japan, shares in Toyota Motor have lost 2.04%, Honda Motor fell 2.48%, while Nissan Motor slipped 1.68%.
In South Korea, Hyundai Motor’s shares have fallen more than 4% – only days after it tried to placate Trump by announcing a $21bn investment in the US.
German carmakers are being rocked by the announcement of new auto tariffs at the US border, too.
Shares are being hit in early trading in Frankfurt, where BMW are down 4.2%, Volkswagen has lost 3.3% and Mercedes-Benz has dropped 4.1%.
Shares in the UK luxury carmaker Aston Martin have tumbled more than 6% at the start of trading in London, to what looks to be a record low.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the move as “bad for businesses, worse for consumers”.
Trump has also threatened further tariffs if the EU worked with Canada “in order to do economic harm to the USA”, which may fuel fears of a tit-for-tat trade conflict that would hurt the global economy.
Writing on his own social media platform, Truth Social, he said if they did so, “large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!”
As the dust settles after yesterday’s spring statement, analysis shows that lower-income households are set to become £500 a year poorer over the current parliament.
The Resolution Foundation has been crunching the data since Rachel Reeves updated us on the nation’s finances, and concluded that poorer households will be most affected by the various tax and benefit changes in this parliament.
Over the next five years the average income across the poorest half of working-age households is projected to decline by 3%, or £500. That has only happened before during the early 1990s recession (1989 to 1994-95) and the financial crisis (2007-08 to 2012-13).
Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: “High debt servicing costs, weak tax receipts, and the need to reassure jittery markets, meant the chancellor had to announce tax rises or spending cuts in her spring statement.
“She chose to focus the bulk of her consolidation on welfare cuts. These cuts have been justified on the basis of getting people into work, but it is questionable how much of a jobs boost they’ll deliver. After all, the bulk of the cuts are to disability benefits which aren’t related to work, and the cuts take effect from 2026, three years before the government’s employment support programme kicks into gear.
“While the OBR’s outlook for growth today got gloomier, it is far more optimistic about Britain’s medium-term economic prospects. The chancellor will hope that reality catches up with the OBR, rather than the OBR falling back to reality, otherwise more tough choices await.
“The outlook for living standards remains bleak. Britain’s poor economic performance, combined with policies that bear down hardest on those on modest incomes, mean that 10 million working-age households across the bottom half of the income distribution are on track to get £500 a year poorer over the course of the parliament.”
Yesterday the chancellor announced welfare cuts of £4.8bn, with official figures showing that 3 million households could lose £1,720 a year in benefits. That could yet lead to a rebellion among Labour MPs when it comes to a vote.
The agenda
• 8.30am GMT: Bank of England policymaker Swati Dhingra speaks on a panel in South Africa
• 9am GMT: Resolution Foundation event assessing the spring statement
• 12.30pm GMT: Updated US Q4 GDP report
• 12.30pm GMT: US weekly jobless claims
We'll be tracking all the main events throughout the day … |
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