LONDON: Global stocks dropped and the dollar eased against the safe-haven yen and Swiss franc on Monday after US President Donald Trump threatened additional tariffs on goods imported from European nations that oppose his planned takeover of Greenland.
Gold and silver prices jumped to new record peaks, while oil dipped on concerns about what a possible trade war between the US and Europe could mean for global growth and demand.
US cash equity markets are closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, although S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures both dropped over 1.2 percent.
In Europe, the STOXX 600 index fell 1.2 percent. Blue-chip indexes in Frankfurt, Paris and London were down 0.4 percent to 1.7 percent. Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.7 percent, and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed.
Trump said he would impose additional 10 percent levies from February 1 on goods imported from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Britain, rising to 25 percent on June 1 if no deal on Greenland was reached.
Major European Union states condemned the tariff threats as blackmail, and France proposed responding with a range of previously untested economic countermeasures. The EU and Britain had agreed trade deals with the US last year.
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