Stock Market Updates LIVE: Markets across Japan, Hong Kong, and China experienced a sharp decline at the open, and India is preparing for a similar impact as Donald Trump’s announcement of ‘Liberation Day’ sent waves of concern through investors. The US President imposed a 26% reciprocal tariff on India and a 34% tariff on China, while Japan, the UK, Vietnam, South Korea, and Taiwan faced tariffs as high as 46%. This could drive inflation in the US, reduce consumer demand, and potentially trigger a recession.

Key Indian indices, Nifty and Sensex, are expected to open lower. Auto, IT, and pharma stocks are likely to attract investor attention.

Gift Nifty suggested a potential decline of up to 1.5%. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei dropped 3.22%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.90%. Markets in South Korea and Australia experienced losses of up to 2%. Dow Jones futures were trading at 41,656, down 836 points or 1.97%.

The US argued that while it previously imposed a 2.5% tariff on passenger vehicle imports, India’s duties on the same product are much higher, at 70%. For rice in the husk, the US tariff stood at 2.7%, while India’s was 80%. While apples entered the US duty-free, India imposed a 50% duty on the fruit.

The US highlighted that it has one of the lowest average most-favored-nation (MFN) tariff rates globally at 3.3%, while countries like Brazil (11.2%), China (7.5%), the European Union (5%), India (17%), and Vietnam (9.4%) have significantly higher MFN rates.

“India, very, very tough. Very, very tough. The Prime Minister just left. He’s a great friend of mine, but I said, You’re a friend of mine, but you’re not treating us right. They charge us 52%. You have to understand, we’ve been charging them almost nothing for years and decades, and it was only seven years ago when I came in that we started with China,” Trump was quoted as saying by PTI.