Wall Street plunge 3 percent with China tariffs on US

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK

Wall Street plummeted 3 percent Monday after a possible trade war between the world's two biggest economies were revived when China hit the U.S. with new tariffs.

In retaliation against President Donald Trump's penalities last month, China began Monday imposing tariffs of 15 - 25 percent on 128 U.S. imports, the finance ministry of China announced.

Ranging from fruits to steel pipes, the affected U.S. goods had a value of $3 billion in 2017, but is only a fraction of U.S. goods sent to China, which totaled around $115 billion in 2016.

The threat of a trade war sparked panic and fear through American markets -- sending indexes into free fall.

The Dow was down 715 points, or 3 percent, to 23,387.18 at 2 p.m. EST (1800GMT).

The S&P lost 81 points, or 3.1 percent, to 2,559, while the Nasdaq was off 3.5 percent to 6, 816 --losing 247 points.

Tech stocks led the market declines.

Shares of Amazon dipped 5.5 percent after Trump continued to criticize the e-commerce giant

"Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon. THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed. Also, our fully tax paying retailers are closing stores all over the country...not a level playing field!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

“While we are on the subject, it is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon ... If the P.O. “increased its parcel rates, Amazon’s shipping costs would rise by $2.6 Billion.” This Post Office scam must stop. Amazon must pay real costs (and taxes) now!" he wrote Saturday via Twitter.

The new losses Monday follow a fall of more than 4 percent Wednesday after reports that Trump was "obsessed" with Amazon, and wants to go after it with tax regulations and competition laws..

Shares of Facebook, Twitter and Google's parent company, Alphabet, were all down around 3 percent at 2 p.m. Monday as their CEOs were invited to a U.S. Senate hearing next week to address data leaks and privacy concerns.