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(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Dell Technologies Inc., Apple Inc., Sonos Inc. and HP Inc. plunged Thursday after President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from virtually every US trading partner, a move that threatens to increase costs, slow demand and strain global supply chains.
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Levies unveiled by Trump on Wednesday strike hardest at some of the biggest centers of manufacturing for technology products used by consumers and businesses in the US, including smartphones, laptop computers and other electronics.
The global nature of the tariff rollout has undercut efforts by companies like Apple to shift production away from China — the top target of Trump’s first-term trade war — toward other Asia trading partners.
The US will now apply a minimum 10% tariff on all imports and slap additional duties on select trading partners deemed as the worst offenders by the administration. Taiwan faces a new 32% tariff, while South Korea will be hit with a 25% rate. China and Vietnam will also face new import levies of 34% and 46%, respectively.
Stocks tumbled as investors digested the fallout for major tech companies. Dell slid 19%, the worst day since it returned to the public markets in December 2018. Apple tumbled 9.2% and HP fell 15%, the biggest single-day plunge for both stocks since March 16, 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sonos fell 17%. Broader US equity indicators also slumped, with the S&P 500 Index dropping about 4.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 off by more than 5%.
Trump’s announcement ended weeks of uncertainty across Wall Street about how far the president would go in his plans. Investor concerns that tariffs risked slowing economic growth and spurring inflation fueled the worst quarter for US equities since 2009.
The new levies will likely squeeze Apple’s margins, “given we don’t expect the company to hike prices to offset the effects,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard said in a note. If Apple does raise prices, it will do so at a time of shaky consumer sentiment, they said.
Apple and HP didn’t respond to requests for comment. Dell, meanwhile, said that it was “reviewing and assessing” the tariff impact. “Dell has a strong track record of leading through any environment with our globally resilient and agile supply chain,” a representative said in an email.