Stocks fell Thursday afternoon as President Donald Trump's pledge to temporarily exempt many imports from his 25% tariffs failed to deter a wider sell-off.
The S&P 500 closed down 1.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 2.6% and is now down more than 10% from its recent all-time high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points, or about 1%.
The major averages have each lost about 3% this week, with the broader S&P 500 now having erased the gains it accrued since Trump won November's election.
That index is off 6% from its all-time high in January, the month he took office.
Trump on Thursday blamed “globalist countries and companies that won't be doing as well” for the sell-off, and also said he wasn’t paying attention to the stock market.
“I think it’s globalists that see how rich our country’s going to be and they don’t like it. Big market out there. But again, they’ve been ripping off this country for years. And they’re going to do great — everyone’s going to do great. But we can’t let this continue to happen to America. Otherwise we’re not going to have a country any longer.”
The drawdown reverses a short-lived rally Wednesday following the Trump administration's announcement that autos from America's largest manufacturers would be exempted from the 25% tariffs he unveiled on Canada and Mexico.
Earlier Thursday, Trump announced all Mexican goods covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, the successor pact to NAFTA that his first administration negotiated, would not face the duties for a month.
He later clarified that USMCA goods from Canada would also be covered by the one-month exemption.
That failed to calm a market already primed to be dragged down by a separate development in the artificial intelligence space. Fresh earnings from California-based chipmaker Marvell Technology indicated a possible slowdown in the race among major tech firms to develop advanced AI systems.
Meanwhile, signs of a more significant economic weakening continue to mount. On Thursday, the Challenger, Gray & Christmas consultancy reported that February saw the most job cuts announced in a single month since the early days of the pandemic, as the massive cuts called for by Elon Musk's DOGE project began to take effect. That data followed findings from private payroll processor ADP Wednesday that showed far fewer jobs added than forecast last month.
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, Trump claimed he wasn't paying attention to the stock market, while also blaming the sell-off on "globalists."
Still, the Challenger report also showed steady hiring continued in a number of industries, despite the losses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to report official jobs figures for February on Friday morning. Forecasters expect to see about 170,000 payrolls added, which would be more than the 143,000 job gains in January.
