Media and tech stocks are following broader markets in a volatile Tuesday, retreating in mid-afternoon trade after an early surge. Investors looking for cracks in a wall of tariffs were initially heartened as President Donald Trump and White House officials said the U.S. is open to negotiations with trading partners from Japan to South Korea […]Media and tech stocks are following broader markets in a volatile Tuesday, retreating in mid-afternoon trade after an early surge. Investors looking for cracks in a wall of tariffs were initially heartened as President Donald Trump and White House officials said the U.S. is open to negotiations with trading partners from Japan to South Korea
Media and tech stocks are following broader markets in a volatile Tuesday, retreating in mid-afternoon trade after an early surge. Investors looking for cracks in a wall of tariffs were initially heartened as President Donald Trump and White House officials said the U.S. is open to negotiations with trading partners from Japan to South Korea and has been approached by some 50 nations as another wave of import taxes is set to hit on midnight Wednesday.
A first round of 10% went into effect on Saturday.
However, nothing going with China, the nation’s third largest trading partner after Canada and Mexico. Beijing, in fact, insisted it will “fight to the end” after Trump threatened an extra 50% tariff on China if it doesn’t drop plans to retaliate against the additional U.S. tariffs.
“The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake,” China’s Commerce Ministry in a statement. “China will never accept it. If the U.S. insists on its own way, China will fight to the end.”
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The tough talk comes as two well-connected Chinese bloggers said American films may be reduced or banned in China amid the trade war, the first public mention of Hollywood fallout there in the tit for tat initiated by the U.S. administration.
China had been loosening up with more U.S. films than ever finding a berth over the past few years. At the same time, local language film led by blockbuster Ne Zha 2 has been booming. Studios tend to dismiss China’s impact given the low split and lack of ancillary sales, but the market there can still help burnish a film’s global box office take. If trade wars continue to heat up, it’s still an open question of how that might impact other markets important to Hollywood and, vice versa, including U.S. production abroad, or streamers’ obligation to fund local production in a globally interconnected entertainment industry.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up about 200 points but that’s a major reversal after a morning surge of 1,600. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and Russell 2000, which started off in positive territory as well, are flickering red and green.
Media stocks are mixed as well. Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Imax are down, Disney and Netflix trending higher. Google and Meta are in positive territory, Apple and Amazon are off.
Tariffs. which raise prices for companies bringing goods into the U.S. and will hit consumer pocketbooks, triggered a panicked, massive selloff in markets late last week and losses into Monday. CEOs have begun speaking out and some economists predicted the trade war could tip the country into a recession. Trump, who says tariffs will move production back to the U.S., has seemed willing to accept serious financial pain to push ahead, brinksmanship that spooked financial markets around the world leading to the steepest drop in the Dow last week since full-on Covid.
Trump supporter Ryan Cohen, CEO of GameStop, posted on X that tariffs “are turning me into a dem” and joked, “I can’t wait for my $10,000 made in the USA iPhone.” Nintendo said it would indefinitely halt U.S. preorders of the Nintendo Switch 2 — which had been set to start April 9 — “in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.”
Today’s early market uptick follows comments by the president that he’s open to negotiating and is in talks with “many nations” to avoid the duties. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the country could end up with “good deals.” But there’s certainly no guarantee and market volatility seems likely to continue.
Meanwhile, in a sideline, DOGE chief Elon Musk called Trump’s main advisor on trade and tariff hawk a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
In a CNBC interview, Navarro had called the Tesla founder and CEO “a car man. He’s a car person. That’s what he does. And he wants the cheap foreign parts.”
Musk, whose businesses will indeed be among those squeezed by tariffs, has been trying to nudge the president in another direction. Over the weekend, he spoke publicly about it for the first time. “I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk reportedly said at an event in Italy hosted by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.
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