Tariffs, turmoil & tech

ON the morning of April 5, 2025, traders at the New York Stock Exchange were glued to their screens as Apple’s stock nosedived nearly five per cent in an hour.

Tesla had already fallen 7pc the day before, and Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet were not far behind. In just three days, nearly $2 trillion in market value was wiped from America’s largest tech firms.

The crash wasn’t triggered by a product flop or a bad earnings report. President Donald Trump had just announced sweeping new tariffs, 10pc on all imports, with steep penalties for key trading partners, including China, India and Vietnam. For Big Tech, which relies on deeply interwoven global supply chains, the blow was immediate and brutal. The markets did not just react; they imploded.

Previous tariff announcements have rattled Wall Street, but this one i...
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