US stocks fall on Trump’s tariff gambit

U.S. stocks fell on concern over global trade risks and disappointing factory data on Monday.

The S&P 500 Index headed toward its biggest decline in almost two months on a report that President Donald Trump will increase tariffs on China if Washington and Beijing can’t reach a trade agreement. Equities also retreated after Trump said he’s restoring tariffs on steel and aluminum from Argentina and Brazil.

The latest tariff development outweighed bets that the world’s two largest economies were close to signing the first part of a trade deal. Meantime, an unexpected drop in U.S. manufacturing showed the sector lacks momentum amid a still-simmering trade war.

“It’s all part of the same narrative, right?” Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, told Bloomberg TV. “There’s a narrative problem in the manufacturing space and the narrative problem obviously stems from trade. Until you actually can sign this deal, I think that manufacturing will remain under pressure.”

Elsewhere, oil rebounded from the biggest weekly loss since October on speculation that OPEC+ could defy expectations by deepening its production cuts.