The president also further raised already steep tariffs on China, saying that Beijing should not have retaliated against his earlier trade actions.
President Trump on Wednesday dramatically reversed course on steep global tariffs that have roiled markets, upset members of his own party and raised fears of a recession, saying just hours after stiff levies went into effect on nearly 60 countries that he would pause them for 90 days.
But the president did not back down on China and instead raised tariffs once again on all of its exports to the United States, bringing those import taxes to a whopping 125 percent. That decision came after Beijing had raised its levies on American goods to 84 percent in an escalating tit-for-tat between the world’s largest economies that showed no signs of cooling.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said that he had authorized “a 90 day PAUSE” in which countries would face “a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff” of 10 percent. As a result, almost every trading partner now faces a 10 percent blanket tariff, except for China, which faces a 125 percent tax.
The S&P 500 climbed about 7 percent in a matter of minutes after Mr. Trump’s post, sharply reversing days of losses. Wednesday was the best day for the S&P 500 since the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Nearly every stock in the index rose. Airlines, some tech companies and Tesla were among those companies to soar over 20 percent. Shares of automakers rose sharply even though 25 percent tariffs on imported cars remain in place. Ford and General Motors both rose more than 7 percent.
Asked why he decided to pause the tariffs just hours after imposing them, Mr. Trump seemed to acknowledge the market rout that had erased trillions of stock market wealth in recent days.
“Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,” he said. “They were getting yippy. They were getting a little bit afraid.”