US appeals court reinstates Trump tariffs, sowing market confusion

NEW YORK – A US appeals court reinstated President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Thursday, leaving Wall Street with no clear direction a day after most of the tariffs were blocked by a trade court, a move that had given markets a brief boost.

Chaotic US trade policy has sent global markets on a roller coaster in recent months. Equity markets were rattled by Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, which have since been repeatedly delayed and adjusted.

Following a market revolt after the April 2 tariff shock, Trump paused most import duties for 90 days and vowed to hammer out bilateral deals with trade partners.

Markets have swung wildly through Trump’s on-and-off tariff changes. The S&P 500 index is up 4.1% since duties were announced while European stocks have gained 2.0%.

Gold is up 5.9% from April 2, and the US dollar index is down 4.4%. Ten-year Treasury yields have climbed 23 basis points to around 4.4%.

But US stocks showed little reaction to the appeals court decision, having already pulled back from the rally sparked by Wednesday’s trade court ruling.

Markets have grown accustomed to the president announcing steep tariffs only to postpone them soon afterward, giving rise to the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), coined by the Financial Times.

Asked on Wednesday by a reporter for his response to the term TACO, Trump said the question was “nasty” and in his defense of tariff changes, said: “It’s called negotiation.”

“Trump has already rolled back most of these tariffs anyway, so these court rulings are just headlines,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York.

“As far as I’m concerned, as long as the market doesn’t tank on the news, it’s just a secondary byproduct,” Sarhan added.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 117.03 points, or 0.28%, to 42,215.73, the S&P 500 gained 23.62 points, or 0.40%, to 5,912.17, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 74.93 points, or 0.40%, to 19,175.87.

(Reporting by the Asia markets team; additional reporting by Stephen Culp and Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Dhara Ranasinghe in London; Writing by Rocky Swift. Editing by Sam Holmes, Ros Russell, and Nia Williams)