The president of the USA Donald Trump in the record series in stock markets with his threats to tariff restrictions against China. Analysts are now awaiting further turmoil in world capital markets, according to Handelsblatt.
Following the escalation of the HAP -China trade dispute on Friday, October 10, 2025, prices on Wall Street collapsed. The top S&P 500 index fell 2.7% and the NASDAQ Stock Exchange fell 3.6%.
The dollar lost value and the top cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, fell sharply by 12%. At the same time, investors searched for safe assets such as Gold, which again rose to its historical high of over $ 4,000 per ounce, which arrived just a few days ago.
Trump plans to impose additional 100% duties on all imports from China from November 1 and import export controls for critical software. Robin Brooks, a Brookings Specialist in Brookings, one of the most famous think tanks in the US, says market turbulence is reminiscent of “Liberation Day” in early April. At that time, Trump announced for the first time some drastic duty increases for US trade partners.
The S&P 500 then fell sharply by one good ten percent. However, prices have quickly recovered, and by summer the index records a new high due to the flourishing of artificial intelligence. Cleiton Trikik of the American Angel Oak Capital assets management company sees the new tariff conflict between the US and China as a “catalyst for a reassessment” in stock markets. It expects significantly higher price fluctuations than in recent weeks.
Trump needed only 600 words to mitigate the record atmosphere in stock markets. The S&P 500 index was just a few units away from a new historical high on Friday. Technology shares, from the US NVIDIA Chip Construction Company to Big Bear AI technology and the promising Computer Company Rigetti, initially rose significantly before the president’s posting on his social network Truth Social trigger a wave of sales.
China has become “very hostile”, Trump wrote on Friday, especially in terms of new restrictions on rare land exports – a raw material that is particularly important for chip manufacturers and, therefore, for the technology industry. “One of the actions we are currently considering is a massive increase in duties in Chinese products imported to the United States”, Trump wrote.
This was enough to trigger a new phase of nervousness in the markets. After an already unstable week characterized by concerns about an artificial intelligence bubble (AI), growing inflation, ruthless public debt and the dollar depreciation, fear returned to Wall Street.
After the New York stock market closes on Friday, Trump became more specific. It announced 100% additional tariffs on Chinese imports and restrictions on “critical software” exports. This, in turn, caused great losses in cryptocurrency markets. Unlike stock markets, these markets are negotiating around the clock.
Collapse for bitcoin
Bitcoin, the largest and oldest cryptocurrency, has experienced serious turmoil. According to Bloomberg Information Information Calculations, almost $ 20 billion in capital disappeared. Seven million of them were lost in just one hour of trading on Friday. Overall, about 1.6 million investors have liquidated their positions in bitcoin. Last week, Bitcoin reached a new high of $ 126,000. On Sunday, the cryptocurrency was negotiating just below $ 112,000, according to Coindesk Analysis Services.
The Brooks Specialist sees parallels with the “Day of Liberation” in early April, especially with regard to the dollar and the price of gold. “The dollar fell by 0.6% on Friday – similar to the decline of 0.4% on April 2”, Brooks writes in his recent analysis. This means that the markets reacted once again to the duties “as if they were hurting the US – not the rest of the world”. The price of gold increased by 1% on Friday to $ 4,018 per ounce, slightly more than a 0.7% increase on April 2, Brooks analyzes.
The dollar is usually increased because investors are looking for refuge in the dollar as a safe haven when selling shares. This is now the “first time for a long time since the dollar has fallen while the price of gold has increased,” Brooks explains. Investors responded to concerns about duties by abandoning the dollar in favor of gold.
In April, after the day of liberation, an extensive wave “sell America” occurred for several days. At that time, investors in some cases sold US shares, bonds and dollar at the same time – a very rare phenomenon in industrial countries.
Investors do not trust the dollar
After Trump has partially retreated from his threats to tariff restrictions, international investors returned to US brokerage markets. However, since then, they have increasingly offset by the weak dollar in the markets for future fulfillment. Friday’s new tariff shock is not good for the reputation of the world reserve currency, Brooks writes. “The dollar does not look healthy right now.”
Following the fall of April, US brokerage markets recovered amazingly quickly, after Trump deviates the trade dispute – especially with China – and announced a delay in tariffs. An appearance by Jamie Dimon, Managing Director of America’s largest bank, JP Morgan Chase, on the “Fox News” brokerage network is said to have prompted Trump to do so.
One main reason for the positive market climate in recent months is the bet that Trump will repeatedly retreat to the trade dispute with China every time markets become very troubled. This bet is also known as ‘Taco Trade’. The acronym means “Trump always gives up” – a not particularly friendly exaggeration for its retreat. Investors now need to decide whether they believe in Taco Trade again and, in addition, evaluate how long Trump will be willing to tolerate significant losses in stock markets and dollar.
“There is a reason why the Americans agreed to truce with China without really getting anything in return: the Chinese have a good hand. This was the case six months ago and is still in force today, “says Dirk Willer, head of macroeconomic research and asset distribution in Citigroup. “A large -scale trade war is difficult for the US to win. The US cannot increase the production of rare earths in a few months. “
However, today (12.10.25), initially it appeared that the trade dispute would not decline. The Chinese state and party leadership has reacted to Trump’s duty announcement in vigorously. ‘US reaction reflects a standard case of dual stations’, He said a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce.
Washington abuses export controls, implements biased measures against China and unilaterally expands its jurisdiction to products such as semiconductors and computer chips, the Ministry of Commerce told Beijing. US actions jeopardize global supply chains and undermine confidence in international trade.
For China, Trump’s threats to tariff restrictions are a challenge. The ministry called on the US to correct their “wrong approach” and to ratify the results of previous trade talks. If Washington “stubbornly persistently in its course”, China will “decisively receive the right countermeasures to protect its legal rights and interests.”
The latest escalation followed Beijing’s decision to launch an investigation into the US semiconductor Qualcomm semiconductor on possible abnormalities of antitrust legislation and to tighten export controls on rare land processing technologies. According to a statement by the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday, such technologies can only be exported with explicit permission. In addition, Chinese companies are forbidden to work with foreign partners in this area.
Military significance of raw materials
The Agency justified the measure by citing the improvement of the national export control system and invoked the military importance of strategic raw materials. “China is acting in accordance with international rules,” Beijing said. This is a formal wording that can be interpreted as an indication that the government considers the movement as a legitimate countermeter in view of US sanctions.
Rare land is considered a critical resource for modern technologies. They are located in electric motors, semiconductors, wind turbines and defensive equipment. The separation and further processing of these metals is particularly complex and China specializes in it. According to the Austrian Information Institute of Information Information, the country controls about 91% of global processing capacity. This sovereignty gives Beijing strategic leverage in negotiations with the US and their allies, including Europeans.
Trump and Chinese President and leader Xi Jinping had initially planned a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea in late October to relieve bilateral tensions. It is no longer clear if the meeting will even take place. “Our relationship with China has been very good for the last six months,” Trump wrote. “But now there seems to be no reason for that.” A cancellation has become more likely.