Tariff battle pushes Brussels Bel20 index below 4,000 points
The Brussels stock exchange closed deep in the red again on Monday. The Bel20 index lost 3.99 per cent, dropping to 3,930.25 points, the first time since August 2024 that it closed below 4,000 points.
US stock markets had ended Friday night deep in the red. In response, the Tokyo stock exchange plunged almost 8 per cent. In Hong Kong, the loss amounted to almost 12 per cent.
The red wave then washed over Western Europe. The Bel20 index at one point fell 6.51 per cent, but almost completely wiped out its losses in the afternoon, when US stock markets experienced a sharp rebound after a red start due to rumours of a possible postponement of US tariffs.
When the White House described those reports as “fake news”, markets dipped back into the red. In Brussels, all shares that count for the calculation of the Bel20 index ended negative. The heaviest day's loss was for Elia, which slid 7.26 per cent to 77.90 euros. The smallest loss was for Solvay, which lost 0.66 per cent at a closing price of 30.12 euros.
Threat against China
Other European stock markets also ended Monday in the red. The CAC 40 (Paris) closed with a loss of 4.8 per cent, the DAX (Frankfurt) with a 4.1 per cent loss and the FTSE (London) with a 4.4 per cent loss. The Amsterdam AEX closed with a day's loss of 4.76 per cent.
US president Donald Trump, in a post on his social network Truth Social on Monday, threatened to impose additional 50 per cent tariffs on Chinese products if China sticks to its retaliatory 34 per cent tariffs.
“Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately,” he said.
Stock chart on a smartphone in Brussels, 7 April 2025 © PHOTO NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP
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