After creating a global tariff tug, US President Donald Trump has paused higher targeted tariffs for 90 days for the countries with no retaliatory response. This sudden reversal in trade intentions has sent global markets in mayhem. Based on “lack of respect” shown by China, he raised the tariff charge levied on them by 125%.

In a social media post, President Trump wrote that this decision was takes because more than 75 trading countries showed no retaliation and have shown an intention to “discuss” the tariff regime. However, this pause did not apply to China which responded with a 84% hike in tariffs. In an attempt to reiterate his tariff policies, Trump increased the duties.

The 90-day pause does not nullify the 10% tariff baseline set by Trump. Although the goods covered by Canada and Mexico will remain outside the tariff boundary but energy and fertilizer products from Canada will have a 10% tariff.

It is unclear as to why Trump had a sudden change of mind but in a statement on Wednesday he mentioned, “I did a 90-day pause for people that didn’t retaliate, because I told the, If you retaliate, we’re going to double it” and as a result, China was left out of the pause.

This move has led to a complete instability of the global trade market and major stock indices have lost their value exponentially after a brief surge earlier this week. However, there was a 9% hike in S&P 500 with tech-driven Nasdaq closing up more than 12% and Dow Jones was 3,000 points higher. Despite these gains though, the indices were way lower than they were a month and lower so before the Trump tariff frenzy.

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Ever since the declaration of “Liberation Day”, the global markets were down $6.6 trillion showing the volatility of the US stock market. The consequences of the pause on tariffs still remains uncertain but the trade war between US and China is set to continue with costlier import duties. the Trump administration will also engage in highly sensitive trade deals over this three month period.