IranPress/America- After a report said President Donald Trump would support moving ahead with additional tariffs on Chinese imports as early as next week, US stocks snapped a four-day winning streak Thursday.
Wall Street also looked ahead to a U.S.-Canada trade deal deadline set for Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 137.65 points while the S&P 500 fell 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.3 percent to after reaching a record high. The indexes also closed lower for the first time in five sessions, CNBC reported.
Bloomberg News reported that Trump told aides he supports moving forward with proposed tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods. The report also said, however, that Trump has not made up his mind on the matter. The White House declined to comment on the report.
Trade-sensitive stocks such as Boeing and Caterpillar hit their session lows following the report's release. Shares of Boeing and Caterpillar dropped 0.9 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
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Strategists believe that the additional tariffs were the biggest risk for the market heading into September. Phil Blancato, CEO of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management, called U.S.-China trade relations "the unknown" in the market. Investors also watched as the U.S. and Canada tried to strike a deal on trade, the report added.
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The list includes food products, chemicals, steel and aluminum, as well as a wide range of other consumer goods.
Erin Ennis, senior vice president of the US China Business Council, said a 10-percent tariff on these products is already causing significant problems, and more than doubling that would be even much worse.
Trump has repeatedly defended his trade policies, saying they go in line with his America First motto.
In June, he officially announced 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports, saying the new tariffs would be levied on a list of strategically important Chinese imports.
China in return, announced its decision to impose further 25 percent tariffs on 659 American products worth $50 billion.
Trump has accused Beijing of intellectual property theft and barriers to entry for US businesses and a $375 billion US trade deficit with China.
China says Washington is "opening fire" on the world with its raft of tariffs aimed at Beijing as well as at trade partners in North America and Europe.
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Washington has imposed financial sanctions on two Turkish ministers and doubled steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to secure the release Andrew Brunson, an American citizen being tried in Turkey on espionage and terrorism-related charges. The Trump administration says Brunson is an evangelical pastor.
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In March, American President Donald Trump imposed a 25-percent tariff on imported iron and steel, and a 10-percent tariff on aluminium -- since then the issue has been discussed heatedly among the U.S. and its major trade partners.
After that, the EU placed a 25-percent tariff on American products and Trump threatened to impose more tariffs on all European cars.
Trump accused the EU and China of manipulating their foreign exchange rates to obtain trade benefits and said a strong dollar and rising Fed interest rates were undermining US competitiveness.
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