Markets and businesses braced for another round of tariffs this week from the U.S. The Trump administration is set to enact these tariffs on Wednesday, and more reciprocal tariffs could follow.
Sunday, U.S. stock futures fell as investors navigated uncertainty around the latest round of tariffs expected from the Trump administration.
Wednesday, which President Trump is calling "Liberation Day," new tariffs are set to go into effect, including a 25% tariff on cars not made in the United States. That same day, President Trump is also expected to announce reciprocal tariffs on a number of products from other countries.
While many details aren't clear, the president referenced the changes on Sunday to reporters.
"The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us- meaning they'll be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America over the decades," Trump said.
Anastassia Fedyk, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, said that the lack of information about what to expect on Wednesday has left many feeling uncertain.
"Investors don’t like uncertainty, so that is already pushing markets down, " Fedyk noted.
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"The second thing is: a guessing game of what exactly is to come on Wednesday," she added.
She said that tariffs can work as a negotiating tool, but widespread tariffs can wind up hurting certain countries and certain industries more.
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"This kind of lack of differentiation between friend and foe, that actually can make it more difficult to apply pressure selectively to individual countries if you’re simultaneously having this trade war on all fronts," Fedyk noted.
Businesses like Port City Brewing Company in Virginia told NBC News that more tariffs could cost them more to make their products.
"It's been on everybody's mind here, and we're very, very concerned about the tariffs," founder Bill Butcher told NBC's Vaughn Hillyard.
Many are left waiting for more clarity from the Trump administration.
"We may well get some more indication of what [President Trump] and [his] team are thinking. Tomorrow, on Monday, or on Tuesday, in which case we’ll see further market impacts," Fedyk said.
