Markets reel from trade tariffs; US job cuts surge in March; Stellantis halts production in Canada, Mexico

Stock markets posted significant drops Thursday after President Trump’s announcement of trade tariffs affecting goods imported from about 100 countries, as analysts projected substantial potential long-term effects on the U.S. and global economies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 132.7 points, or 0.3%, for the day, with the Nasdaq Composite declining about 2% and the S&P 500 falling 1.1%. All three indexes had posted year-to-date declines as of Thursday, after several weeks of trade-related volatility.

Analysts reported that some real estate investment trusts have fared comparatively well amid recent losses in wider equity markets, as investors seek safer havens. The latest closing data as of Thursday showed the Real Estate Select Sector SPDR, an exchange-traded fund, was up about 2.9% year-to-date, and the Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund, among the largest in the category, was up about 3.2%. Other large REITs have posted slight losses or no change for the year.

Researchers at Oxford Economics said the latest round of tariffs is likely to further dampen U.S. and global sentiment among consumers and businesses, which was already pitched lower in recent weeks by earlier tariff announcements by the Trump administration.

The full tariff slate could bring annual global growth in gross domestic product to 2% this year, according to Ben May, the forecasting firm’s director of global macro research. While a global recession would likely be avoided, May said that would mark the weakest annual growth rate since the global financial crisis of 2008, excluding the pandemic period. 

Job reductions announced in March by U.S. employers jumped 60% from the prior month and more than tripled the year-earlier figure, fueled mainly by federal government cuts, according to the latest tracking by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Employers announced a total of 275,240 job cuts in March, the third-highest monthly total in more than 20 years of tracking by the Chicago-based outplacement firm. The government category accounted for 216,215 reductions for the month, all of them in the federal government.

“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by Department of Government Efficiency plans to eliminate positions in the federal government,” Senior Vice President Andrew Challenger said in a statement Thursday. “It would have otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs.”

Announced cuts by all industries totaled 497,052 in the first quarter, the highest quarterly total since the first quarter of 2009. Other categories with big 2025 reductions include technology, with 37,097 year-to-date including 15,055 in March; and retail, with 57,804 year-to-date including 11,709 in March. 

Automaker Stellantis announced it is temporarily halting production at plants in Canada and Mexico, resulting in reductions of more than 5,000 workers including about 900 in the U.S. as the industry responds to a new 25% tariff imposed on imported vehicles.

Stellantis confirmed that a plant in Windsor, Ontario, that produces some Chrysler and Dodge vehicles would be idled for two weeks starting April 7, affecting about 4,500 workers in Canada. A Jeep plant in Toluca, Mexico, will be shut for the rest of April, though workers will still report to the facility but not produce vehicles under terms of a labor contract. The two shutdowns will idle about 900 workers at a total of five Stellantis facilities in Michigan and Indiana that support Canadian and Mexican production, the company said.

Stellantis is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects” of new tariffs on its operations as the “current environment creates uncertainty,” Antonio Filosa, the company’s chief operating officer for North America, told employees in an email Thursday. Analysts have said new tariffs are likely to raise costs for cars and numerous other items.

Tariffs on completed imported vehicles took effect Thursday, and a 25% tariff on imported auto parts is slated to take effect May 3.