Another Rocky Day in Markets: Stocks in Asia Resume Their Slide

Market turmoil extended into Wednesday, as stocks across Asia faced renewed pressure following the implementation of significantly higher import taxes on goods entering the United States.

Stocks in Asia slumped on Wednesday, following a day on Wall Street when markets whipsawed. Taiwan was the worst hit, sinking more than 5 percent. Benchmark indexes were down more than 3 percent in Japan and almost 2 percent in South Korea. Stocks listed in Hong Kong were roughly flat, while those listed in Shanghai gained slightly.

President Trump uprooted investors last week with the announcement of tariffs on countries across the world. On Wednesday, significantly higher import taxes went into effect for goods arriving from over a dozen countries in Asia, with taxes on imports from China exceeding 100 percent.

In the United States, the S&P 500 ended trading on Tuesday near a bear market, which is a 20 percent drop from a recent peak — a symbolic, and relatively rare and worrisome, threshold for investors. It closed 18.9 percent below its mid-February record, having plunged more than 12 percent just in the days since Mr. Trump announced his new tariffs.

S&P 500 futures, which let investors bet on the direction of the index when it resumes trading in New York, were about 2 percent lower.

Economies in Asia were hit hardest by Mr. Trump’s tariff increases, according to analysts at BMI, a unit of the research firm Fitch Solutions. While they are waiting “a few days” to see whether countries can negotiate tariffs down, when it comes to forecasts of growth, there are likely “large downward revisions in order,” they said.

Administration officials appeared to leave the door open for negotiations that could ultimately defuse the trade war, citing the fact that dozens of countries had approached the U.S. government in recent days to strike deals.

But White House officials have sought to set a high bar for what the president is willing to accept, marking a shift in tone after Mr. Trump and his aides initially signaled they would not haggle over tariffs at all.

“If they come to us with really great deals that advantage American manufacturing and American farmers, I’m sure he’ll listen,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an interview on Fox News.

But, he added, “after decades and decades of mistreating American workers, it’s going to be tough to get him to decide to really come to the table and sign on the dotted line.”

Earlier this week, Japan emerged as the first major economy to secure priority tariff negotiations with the Trump administration. The news triggered a brief surge in Tokyo-listed stocks before they resumed their decline on Wednesday.

Since Mr. Trump’s announcement last week of new tariffs, including a base tax of 10 percent on virtually all American imports, other countries have responded with tariffs of their own on U.S. goods, or with threats of retaliation.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, retaliated with 34 percent tariffs on American goods that are set to take effect at noon Eastern time on Wednesday.