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Stocks Fall Further as Concern About Tariffs Deepens

Share prices fell sharply for a second day on Friday in Asia, and futures market trading indicated that American share prices might soon tumble further as well, as worries spread about the economic effect of President Trump’s broad tariffs.

The Nikkei 225 Index in Japan was down 3.8 percent. That followed a 2.8 percent drop on Thursday after Mr. Trump announced a far-reaching revision of American tariffs that included an extra 24 percent on goods from Japan.

In South Korea, the Kospi Index fell 1.7 percent on Friday after dipping 0.8 percent the prior day. President Trump this week put a 26 percent tariff on imports from South Korea.

American share prices have fallen faster than those in other markets since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, and their underperformance appeared set to continue on Friday. Futures on the S&P 500 were down 2.2 percent on Friday.

The S&P 500 suffered its worst single-day loss since 2020 on Thursday, plummeting 4.8 percent.

Investors were already on edge because of the potential disruption that Mr. Trump’s policies could have on the economy. His announcement on Wednesday, which included a minimum tax of 10 percent on nearly all imports, caused markets to convulse as investors dumped stocks and sought safety in government bonds.

Stocks were hit particularly hard in Southeast Asia, after Mr. Trump’s tariffs landed heavily on countries that reprocess a lot of Chinese components for the United States market, bypassing until now the American tariffs on goods coming straight from China. The stock market in Vietnam was down again on Friday after plunging the prior day.

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Mr. Trump announced 46 percent tariffs on goods from Vietnam on Wednesday, among the highest he imposed on any country. For every dollar of U.S. goods that Vietnam imported last year, it exported nearly $11 worth of goods to the United States. Many of those exports were made with components imported from China.

Stock markets in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Taipei were closed on Friday for a local holiday.

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