Trump tariffs live updates: Asian markets open in red for second day over US president’s global trade war

A conservative legal group has filed what it said was the first lawsuit seeking to block Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports, saying the US president overstepped his authority.

New Civil Liberties Alliance filed the lawsuit in Florida’s federal court, alleging that Mr Trump lacked the legal authority to impose the sweeping tariffs unveiled on Wednesday as well as duties authorised on 1 February under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.”

By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, president Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress’s right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution’s separation of powers,” senior litigation counsel Andrew Morris said in a statement.

The group filed the lawsuit on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based retailer of home management products.

Trump on Wednesday announced that China would be hit with a 34 per cent tariff, on top of the 20 per cent he imposed earlier this year, bringing the total new levies to 54 per cent.

In a statement published alongside the tariff announcement, the White House said: “The UK maintains non-science-based standards that severely restrict US exports of safe, high-quality beef and poultry products.”

It suggested that Britain’s ban on chlorinated chicken was among a range of “non-tariff barriers” that limit the US’s ability to trade.

The UK has long ruled out allowing imports of chlorine-washed chicken from the US due to health concerns, with Rachel Reeves in November reiterating her opposition to any concessions on the issue.

Republican US senator Chuck Grassley introduced a bill yesterday that would require congressional approval for new tariffs, the day after president Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new taxes on a vast array of imported goods.

Mr Grassley, whose home state of Iowa relies heavily on the global agricultural trade, joined Democratic senator Maria Cantwell of Washington for the “Trade Review Act of 2025”.

The bill requires Congress to sign off on new tariffs within 60 days of their imposition or automatically block their enforcement.

The move, made the day after four other Senate Republicans voted for a measure that would lift Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, was the latest sign of dissent among Republicans as Mr Trump’s aggressive moves fanned recessionary fears and sparked Wall Street’s worst day since 2022.

Neither Mr Grassley’s bill nor the measure that passed the Senate on Wednesday were seen as likely to become law while Mr Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both the houses.

Asian shares struggled to recover their heavy losses from the previous session as Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.85 per cent this morning, extending its 2.8 per cent slide from yesterday.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.26 per cent in thin trade, with markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan closed for a holiday.

Overnight S&P 500 companies lost a combined $2.4 trillion in stock market value, their biggest one-day loss since the Covid-19 pandemic hit global markets on 16 March 2020, while other Wall Street indexes similarly clocked sharp falls.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell to an eight-month low on Friday.

A collection of feta producers in Greece have already noted they’ll be severely impacted, with half their sales to America likely to disappear. “We have to divert these quantities to other markets,” said the head of Greece’s association of dairy industries.

That could mean lower prices elsewhere to stoke demand, or trying to find new territories to sell into. But even the latter could see price rises as the wider economic impacts of recession risk and supply chain disruptions are felt.

The European Dairy Association has similarly criticised the move as “unjustified”.

But that in turn means that many might opt out of paying higher prices, while businesses in America might cancel orders coming in from overseas to avoid paying those extra costs. That might mean raising prices elsewhere to reduce their losses.

Here’s what different industries have said in response and what impact that might have on UK prices:

Just days after Percy Pig began his US adventure, the iconic sweet may have to return home.

Percy was described as M&S’s “gift to America” when the confectionary hit Target shelves on March 30.

However, the chair of M&S Archie Norman told the Retail Technology Show on Wednesday that “we might have to change our minds” as Trump’s tariffs loomed.

Later on Wednesday, Trump confirmed his sweeping tariffs on imports.

Business leaders warned Sir Keir Starmer from responding with even more tariffs saying they would only escalate the global trade war.

Rain Newton-Smith, director-general of the CBI, said that there would be no winners in a trade war. She said retaliation would “only add to supply chain disruption, slow down investment and stoke volatility”.

Writing in the Telegraph, Jeremy Hunt urged Sir Keir to “resist the siren song of protectionism” and embrace Brexit freedoms to turn Britain into “Singapore-on-Thames”.

The former chancellor said retaliating to Trump’s tariffs could risk tipping Britain into recession.

Mr Hunt urged the Prime Minister to make Britain a low-tax nation that welcomed free trade and “could thrive at a time of global instability”.