Trump halts duty on 75 nations for 90 days, slaps 125% on China

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It was seemingly an attempt to narrow what had been an unprecedented trade war between the US and most of the world to a showdown between the US and China.

The S&P 500 stock index jumped nearly 7 per cent after the announcement, but the precise details of Trump's plans to ease tariffs on non-China trade partners were not immediately clear.

Trump posted on Truth Social that because “more than 75 countries” had reached out to the US government for trade talks and had not retaliated, “I have authorised a 90-day pause and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period, of 10 per cent, also effective immediately.”

The 10 per cent tariff was the baseline rate for most nations that went into effect on Saturday. It's lower than the 20 per cent tariff that Trump had set for goods from the European Union, 24 per cent on imports from Japan and 25 per cent on products from South Korea.

Still, 10 per cent would represent an increase in the tariffs previously charged by the US government.

The announcement came after the global economy appeared to be in open rebellion against Trump's tariffs as they took effect Wednesday, a signal that the US President was not immune from market pressures.

Business executives were warning of a potential recession caused by his policies, some of the top US trading partners are retaliating with their own import taxes and the stock market is quivering after days of decline.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the walk back was part of some grand negotiating strategy by Trump.

“President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” she said, adding that the news media "clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here. You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China, when in fact, we've seen the opposite effect the entire world is calling the US, not China, because they need our markets”. But market pressures had been building for weeks ahead of Trump's move.