Global markets continue to be volatile in response to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on U.S. foreign trade partners.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by nearly 500 points in midday trading Monday, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also saw slight declines.
The sell-offs follow a tumultuous last week in which all three major indexes closed in the red following the president's announcement of a baseline 10% tariff on all U.S. imports — which went into effect Saturday.
Additional duties, meanwhile, are set to go into effect Wednesday on countries the White House describes as the "worst offenders." In response, countries like China and Canada have responded with their own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.
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The White House says the tariffs will raise hundreds of billions of dollars and spark more companies to produce their goods domestically.
But many economists say consumers will pay the price — including economics professor Keith Maskus.
"In the end, it is pretty much always the domestic consumers that pay almost the full share these tariffs. And again, it's just the way tariffs work," Maskus said
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, sought to alleviate fears of a potential recession, saying Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Americans should be skeptical of day-to-day market volatility.
"Who knows how the market is gonna react in a day, in a week," Bessent said. "What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity that I think the previous administration had put us on a course toward financial calamity."
