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By Rae Wee
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Global markets greeted Donald Trump's presidency with apprehension on Tuesday in moves that were highly sensitive to headlines over the newly sworn-in president's plans for trade relations and tariffs in particular.
U.S. markets were closed for a holiday on Monday, so the first reactions to Trump's return to the White House were felt during Asian trade on Tuesday.
Just as investors cheered the possibility of a delay in Trump's implementation of tariffs following a brief mention of the topic in his inauguration speech, the U.S. president said shortly after that he was mulling imposing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada as soon as Feb. 1.
That sent the Mexican peso sliding 1% against the dollar while the Canadian dollar tumbled to a five-year low of C$1.4515.
The news also quickly reversed gains in global stock markets and sent the greenback strongly rebounding across the board in choppy trade.
"The first few hours of the Trump administration have underscored that the policy environment will be dynamic once again and markets should brace for volatility," said Charu Chanana, Saxo's chief investment strategist.
"Clearly, the markets celebrated too soon with tariff threats missing at the outset in Trump's inaugural speech."
U.S. stock futures pared their strong gains from earlier in the session, leaving Nasdaq futures last 0.08% lower, while S&P 500 futures were up a mere 0.07%.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures fell 0.25%. FTSE futures eased 0.02%.
Japan's Nikkei similarly swung between losses and gains and was last up 0.13%.
Trump's plans for hefty import tariffs have been a key area of focus for financial markets on the view that such policies will stoke inflation and run the U.S. economy red hot again, which would boost the dollar and hurt bonds.
Some investors had expected a swift imposition of tariffs from the moment he took office, so the lack of any concrete moves initially sparked a brief relief rally across stocks and U.S. Treasuries.
"At some point, we are quite certain that Trump will start to move on the tariff measures ... It's quite clear what his intent is," said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ.
"The fact that he hasn't addressed this on day one doesn't mean that it is off the agenda. It is definitely firmly on the agenda, it's just that we have to wait and see what shape or form he takes."
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was last 6.7 basis points lower at 4.5440%. Yields move inversely to bond prices.