Marcos economic team to meet today

Asian and European equities collapsed on a black Monday for markets after China hammered the United States with its own hefty tariffs, ramping up a trade war many fear could spark a recession.

In Manila, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s economic team will meet today (Tuesday) to discuss the government’s action as the US worldwide reciprocal tariffs will take effect on April 9, Trade Secretary Ma. Cristina Roque said.

Philippine shares took a beating Monday on massive regional selloff that saw the index plunging 4.3 percent.

The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 261.34 points to close at 5,822.85, the lowest in 2.5 years.

Roque said she already signified a meeting with her counterpart in the US to discuss ways forward on bilateral trade relations of the two countries.

‘ASEAN must stand firm together’

The economic managers’ meeting will take place following Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s call for Southeast Asian countries to “stand firm together” after they were among the hardest hit by US tariffs.

“We must stand firm together as ASEAN with a population of 640 million and an economic strength that is among the top in the world,” Anwar said at a prime minister’s department staff meeting.

Southeast Asian economic ministers will hold a meeting Thursday to discuss the tariffs.

Trading floors were overcome by a wave of selling Monday as investors fled to the hills, with Hong Kong’s loss of 13 percent its worst in nearly three decades since October 1997 during the Asian financial crisis, while Frankfurt dived 10 percent, Taipei 9.7 percent and Tokyo almost eight percent.

Futures for Wall Street’s markets were also taking another drubbing, while commodities slumped.

US President Donald Trump sparked a market meltdown last week when he unveiled sweeping tariffs against US trading partners for what he said was years of being ripped off and claimed that governments were lining up to cut deals with Washington.

But after Asian markets closed on Friday, China said it would impose retaliatory levies of 34 percent on all US goods from April 10.

Beijing also imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including gadolinium—commonly used in MRIs—and yttrium, utilized in consumer electronics.

Bitter medicine

Trump, however, doubled down on his demand to slash deficits with trading partners, saying he would not cut any deals unless that was resolved.

“Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” said Trump, whose administration has shrugged off the market panic.

He told reporters aboard Air Force One that world leaders were “dying to make a deal.”

“I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world. They’re dying to make a deal,” he said.

“And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country. We’re not going to do that, because to me a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or at worst, going to be breaking even,” Trump added.

US officials said more than 50 countries have reached out to Trump to negotiate.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump has “created maximum leverage for himself.”

“I think we’re going to have to see what the countries offer and whether it’s believable,” Bessent said.

Other countries have been “bad actors for a long time and it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks,” he said.

No sector unharmed

The savage selling in Asia was across the board, with no sector unharmed—tech firms, car makers, banks, casinos and energy firms all felt the pain as investors abandoned riskier assets.

Among the biggest losers, Chinese ecommerce titans Alibaba tanked more than 17 percent and rival JD.com shed 14 percent, while Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank dived more than 11 percent and Sony gave up nine percent.

“(Trump) won’t let it go, he’s making a mess,” said a retiree surnamed Lee. “Everyone around me is losing money.”

Shanghai shed more than seven percent, with China’s state-backed fund Central Huijin Investment vowing to help ensure “stable operations” of the market.

Singapore plunged nearly eight percent, while Seoul gave up more than five percent, triggering a so-called sidecar mechanism—for the first time in eight months—that briefly halted some trading.

Sydney, Wellington, Manila and Mumbai were also deep in the red, while London and Paris both dropped more than six percent at the open.

Recession warning

“We could see a recession happen very quickly in the US, and it could last through the year or so, it could be rather lengthy,” said Steve Cochrane, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“If there’s a recession in the US, of course, China will feel it as well because demand for its goods will be hit even harder,” he added.

Concerns about demand saw oil prices sink more than three percent at one point Monday, having dropped around seven percent Friday. Both main contracts are now sitting at their lowest levels since 2021.

Copper—a vital component for energy storage, electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines—also extended losses.

In Malaysia, Anwar said his government’s task was “to contact our friends in ASEAN so that each country can state its position, but at the same time, we move together as a group.”

Manufacturing powerhouse Vietnam was hit with a 46 percent tariff on its exports to the United States, while neighboring Cambodia—a major producer of low-cost clothing for big Western brands—was slapped with a 49 percent duty.

Malaysia, Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy, was hit with a lower tariff of 24 percent.

Like the other ASEAN members, Kuala Lumpur has said it will not introduce retaliatory actions against the United States, despite refuting Washington’s claims that it imposes a 47 percent tariff on US goods.

“I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” Malaysia’s Trade Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said at a press conference. With AFP