Stocks rise after court blocks many of Trump’s tariffs
The White House immediately appealed the court’s decision, and the long-term outcome of legal disputes over tariffs remains uncertain
The S&P 500 was 0.7 per cent higher in early trading, and it pulled within 3.5 per cent of its all-time high set earlier this year. It had dropped roughly 20 per cent below the mark last month, when fears were at their worst about whether Trump’s trade war would drive the economy into a recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 60 points, or 0.1 per cent, as of 9.35am Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3 per cent higher.
The gains were even bigger in Asia, where markets had the first chance to react to the ruling issued late on Wednesday by the US Court of International Trade in New York. It said that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump cited for ordering massive increases in taxes on imports worldwide does not authorise the use of tariffs.
The White House immediately appealed, and the long-term outcome of legal disputes over tariffs remains uncertain. The court’s ruling also affects only some of Trump’s tariffs, not those on foreign steel, aluminium and autos, which were invoked under a different law.
Trump “is still able to impose significant and wide-ranging tariffs over the longer-term through other means”, according to Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, chief investment officer of global equities at UBS Global Wealth Management.