Italy has warned against an escalation in the global trade war sparked by US president Donald Trump’s increased tariffs.

Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti warned on Saturday against the imposition of retaliatory tariffs on the United States in response to Mr Trump’s announcement.

Speaking at a business forum near Milan, Mr Giorgetti said Italy was aiming for a “de-escalation” with the U.S.

“We should avoid launching a policy of counter-tariffs that could be damaging for everyone and especially for us,” Mr Giorgetti said.

Under Trump’s plans Italy, which has a large trade surplus with the United States, will be subject to a general tariff of 20 per cent along with other European Union countries.

President Donald Trump is breaking with decades of globalisation and pursuing protectionism, waging a global trade war on allies and enemies alike. How significant is this shift?

For Carmen Reinhart, a former chief economist of the World Bank and professor at Harvard University, it is a “historical moment”.

He told The Washington Post: “Even if there is paddling back by the administration and even if negotiations start to soften the edges, this is the nail in the coffin of globalisation”.

Kelly Ann Shaw, a trade lawyer at Hogan Lovells and former White House trade adviser, said on Thursday that Mr Trump’s announcement was “the single biggest trade action in our lifetime”.

Describing the scale of the changes, she added: “This is huge. This is a pretty seismic and significant shift in the way that we trade with every country on Earth”.

Mr Trump has said that his high tariffs will deliver a new “Golden Age” that benefits American companies and workers, adding: “We’re going to be an entirely different country, and it’s going to be fantastic for the workers. It’s going to be fantastic for everyone.”

US customs agents began collecting a unilateral 10 per cent tariff on all imports from many countries on Saturday – including the UK.

Higher levies on goods from other trading partners are due to start next week.

The initial 10 per cent charge took effect at 12.01am ET (0401 GMT) on Saturday. The announced plans cause trillions of dollars to be lost from the global stock markets on Friday.

The FTSE 100, made up of the UK’s biggest listed companies, was down 4.95 per cent, the worst one-day fall since Covid hit.

Investors are now concerned that markets could fall even lower in the midst of an international trade war, leading to risk of a market crash. Analysts at major investment bank JPMorgan have also raised the risk of a global recession to 60 per cent, telling clients: “There will be blood.”

“[The tariffs], if sustained, would likely push the US and possibly global economy into recession this year. An update of our probability scenario tree makes this point, raising the risk of a recession this year to 60 per cent,” they say.

But the current drop is not a stock market crash, and many analysts say it is too early to tell whether that is the direction the current slump is heading.

There are higher tariffs for cars and car parts – 25 per cent – which will also extend to all computer imports, including laptops.

The list includes tariff codes for engines, transmissions, lithium-ion batteries and other major components, along with less expensive parts including tires, shock absorbers, spark plug wires and brake hoses.

Trump says the tariffs are the US’s “declaration of independence”.

Howmet Aerospace, which supplies parts for planes built by Airbus and Boeing , may halt some shipments if they are impacted by tariffs announced by Donald Trump, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

This marks the first such maneuver by a major aerospace company since the tariff announcement, one of the sources said.

Pittsburgh-based Howmet said in the letter to customers that it has declared a force majeure event, a legal practice that allows parties to a contract to avoid their obligations if hit by unavoidable and unpredictable external circumstances.

“Howmet will be excused from supplying any products or services that are impacted by this declared national emergency and/or the tariff executive order,” Howmet wrote in the letter.

Howmet is a supplier of critical metal components used across the $150bn jetliner industry.

The question over whether the UK should accept chlorinated chicken from the United States is “almost entirely a proxy battle for whether UK trade policy should favour the US or EU more”, a trade expert has said.

David Henig, UK director of think-tank Ecipe, said on social media: “Though this doesn’t have to be the case (NB Swiss exception) if the UK signs up to US food standards, bye bye deep EU trade relationship. That was why the Brexiters wanted a US trade deal, and hoped wrongly CPTPP would achieve the same.

“And right now even the possible prospect of a UK-US trade deal is casting doubt in Brussels about the reset, which may be manageable but with the sort of care and skill that goes far beyond ‘bridge’ talk and hasn’t previously been shown by the UK.

“Behind all the bluster the trade policy view is pretty simple. 50 per cent of UK trade is with Europe, less than 20 per cent with the US. That seems pretty stable, therefore even folk in the US understand the likely implications, possibly better than the UK government.”

Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba is planning to arrange a telephone conversation next week with US president Donald Trump on tariffs, Jiji News reported this morning.

Mr Ishiba was speaking on a television programme aired this morning, Jiji said, when he expressed his intention to hold direct talks with the US leader.

The US customs agents began collecting president Donald Trump’s unilateral 10 per cent tariff on all imports from many countries today, with higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners due to start next week.

Among the countries first hit with the 10 per cent tariff are Australia, Britain, Colombia, Argentina, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A US Customs and Border Protection bulletin to shippers indicates no grace period for cargoes on the water at midnight today.

The initial 10 per cent “baseline” tariff took effect at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses at 12.01 am ET (0401 GMT), ushering in Mr Trump’s full rejection of the Second World War system of mutually agreed tariff rates.

“This is the single biggest trade action of our lifetime,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a trade lawyer at Hogan Lovells and former White House trade adviser during Mr Trump’s first term.

China said “the market has spoken” in rejecting Donald Trump’s tariffs, and called on Washington for “equal-footed consultation” after global markets’ dramatic reaction to the trade levies.

“The market has spoken,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a post on Facebook this morning. He also posted a picture capturing Friday’s falls on US markets.

“Now is the time for the US to stop doing the wrong things and resolve the differences with trading partners through equal-footed consultation,” Mr Guo wrote in English.

Mr Trump introduced additional 34 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods as part of steep levies imposed on most US trade partners, bringing the total duties on China this year to 54 per cent.

Several Chinese commerce associations in industries from healthcare and textiles to electronics also issued statements on Saturday calling for unity in exploring alternative markets and warning that the tariffs would worsen inflation in the US.