By Lucy Bayly
Wall Street plunged Monday morning, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by almost 600 points in response to a ratcheting up of trade tensions after China said it would raise tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, starting June 1.
Global markets have shown intense volatility over the past few weeks, with all three major indices in the U.S. seeing an extended sell-off as investors parsed the likelihood of a resolution to months of trade negotiations between the world’s two largest economies. Last week was the worst for the S&P 500 so far this year, with the index falling by more than 3.5 percent. The Dow Jones saw its biggest decline since March.
The retaliation from the Chinese finance ministry comes after President Donald Trump followed through on his threat to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports last week. As of 12:01 a.m. last Friday, around 5,700 categories of Chinese-made goods bound for the U.S. were subject to a 25 percent tariff, up from 10 percent.