US stocks close with losses as Trump confirms new auto tariffs

By Mucahithan Avicoglu

ISTANBUL (AA) - US stocks ended lower Thursday in the wake of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump a day earlier imposing 25% tariffs on auto imports.

Trump portrayed the order as an effort to bring wealth to the US, saying foreign nations "really ripped us off at levels that nobody's seen before. But that's not going to happen."

"They've taken so much out of our country, friend and foe. And frankly, friend has been oftentimes much worse than foe. And this is very modest," he told reporters in the Oval Office.

"What we're going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they're made in the United States, there’s absolutely no tariff."

Trump also threatened the European Union and China with “large scale” tariffs if they work together to economically harm the US.

“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Following this, General Motors slipped more than 7% and Ford lost 3.8%, while Tesla gained 0.3%.

On the macroeconomic data side, the US Commerce Department revised up its fourth-quarter GDP growth figure to a 2.4% annualized pace from a previous estimate of 2.3%.

Initial jobless claims in the US fell by 1,000 to 224,000 last week, lower than forecasts.

Meanwhile, the US goods trade deficit contracted 4.9% to $147.9 billion last month, higher than estimates, according to data from the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

The S&P 500 was off by 0.33% or 18.89 points to close the day at 5,693.31.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.53% or 94.98 points to 17,804.03, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.37%, or 155.09 points, to 42,299.70.

The VIX Index, also known as the “fear index," rose by 1.96% to 18.69.

The US 10-year bond yield rose to 4.36%, while the dollar index fell 0.27% to 104.2.