Stock
markets stumble as global trade faces more Trump tariff uncertainty
US
president’s international trade war spooks investors, with drops in US share
prices after European losses
Kalyeena
Makortoff in New York
Mon 23
Feb 2026 17.35 GMT
Stock
markets stumbled on Monday as Donald Trump pushed ahead with fresh tariffs on
the US’s trading partners despite a supreme court strike-down and growing
opposition from domestic voters.
Uncertainty
over the status of global trade deals spooked investors, triggering a drop in
US shares prices including on the Dow Jones industrial average, which tumbled
1.6% by Monday’s closing. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 fell 1.4% and 1.1%,
after losses for European stock markets.
Shareholders
were struggling to discern the next steps in Trump’s global trade war, after
the US supreme court ruled on Friday that the president overstepped his legal
authority by using emergency measures to impose tariffs on countries across the
world last year.
However,
Trump went on to announce over the weekend that he would push ahead and impose
temporary tariffs on US imports from all countries: first declaring a 10% rate,
before increasing that figure to 15%, under a never-before-used section of the
Trade Act of 1974.
Trump
used his Truth Social platform on Monday to warn he could end up imposing
tariffs in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way”, before threatening world
leaders over their plans to reassess trade deals in light of the court ruling.
“Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court
decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the U.S.A. for years, and
even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which
they just recently agreed to. BUYER BEWARE!!!” Trump said.
That
warning comes despite signs of growing domestic opposition to the US
president’s trade war.
A YouGov
poll, conducted hours after the supreme court decision was released on Friday,
showed most Americans – about 60% – backed the supreme court’s decision to
strike down Trump’s sweeping tariffs regime.
Support
for the supreme court’s ruling crossed political lines, gaining approval from
88% of Democrats, 63% of independents, and a large minority of Republicans at
30%.
It comes
amid price pressures, with most Americans saying Trump’s tariffs have resulted
in them having to pay more for goods and services. Republicans were four times
more likely to say Trump’s tariffs have increased prices than to say that they
had slashed costs for consumers, YouGov surveys showed.
Frustration
was already brewing before judges deemed the tariffs illegal on Friday, with a
Fox News poll showing 63% of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s handling
of tariffs, while only 37% approved. That polling is likely to raise concerns
among Republicans as they head into midterm elections in November.
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