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The 90-day pause will apparently apply to some tariffs for more than 75 countries that haven't issued retaliatory duties. Trump announced the halt on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, April 9.
A 10% tariff will remain in place for the countries included in the pause. The White House said the 10% duty will also apply to Canada and Mexico, NBC News reported.
In the same announcement, Trump escalated his tariff on Chinese goods from 104% to 125% "effective immediately" after China raised its retaliatory tariff on the US to 84%.
"At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable," Trump posted.
The announcement sent US markets skyrocketing in a recovery from four days of tremendous losses on Wall Street. When the markets closed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly 2,963 points, the S&P 500 Index gained more than 470 points, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped by more than 1,850.
The Dow remained down by about 0.92% and the S&P 500 still had lost 0.65% from when markets opened on Thursday, April 3, the day after Trump's "liberation day" announcement. The tech-heavy Nasdaq completed its comeback, ending up by 1.99%.
Trump tried to influence the stock market hours before announcing his retreat from many of his tariffs.
"BE COOL!" he posted on Truth Social at 9:33 a.m. "Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!"
"THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" he wrote four minutes later.
The fallout from Trump's sweeping tariff plan removed about $6.6 trillion from US equity markets in the two days after his Rose Garden news conference.
"The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a social media post.
China has pushed back on Trump's escalation of the trade war, calling his actions "economic bullying."
"The US's practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China's legitimate rights and interests, seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system, and seriously impacts the stability of the global economic order," the country's Ministry of Finance said in a translation of a news release announcing China's 84% reciprocal tariff.
Major banks warned of more damage ahead because of Trump's widespread tariffs. Goldman Sachs had raised the odds of a recession to 65%, while JPMorgan hiked its forecast to 60%. CNBC reported that Goldman rescinded its recession call after Trump's pause, lowering it back to 45%.
The pause also seemingly proved a false social media post to be right. The rumor, which briefly sent markets soaring on Monday, April 7, claimed Trump was considering halting his tariffs for 90 days, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it "fake news."
Before the pause, the European Union voted to impose its first set of retaliatory tariffs on the US.
"The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy," the EU said in a statement. "The EU has stated its clear preference to find negotiated outcomes with the US, which would be balanced and mutually beneficial."
The EU tariffs were slated to begin on Tuesday, April 15, but it's unclear how Trump's pause will impact them.
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