Markets plunge as Trump warns to slap 100% tariffs on China amid trade war

President Donald Trump has sent the market tumbling while escalating his trade war with China and threatening a 100 percent tariff “over and above” current rates for Beijing.

According to Independent, the S&P 500 dropped 2.71 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped about 878 points and the NASDAQ Composite slid 3.58 percent by the Wall Street closing bell at 4 p.m. ET Friday.

Stocks had been dropping all day after Trump announced in a lengthy Truth Social post mid-morning a “massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products,” to “financially counter” the country’s new export controls on rare earth minerals.

Trump said, “Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China.”

China’s Ministry of Commerce announced Thursday overseas exporters need to get an export license for items that contain more than 0.1 percent of rare earths from China or are manufactured using the country’s rare earth extraction or refining technology to “safeguard national security and interests.”