Wall Street poised to open lower Friday as Trump's tariff letters spark investor anxiety

MANILA, Philippines — Just hours after hitting all-time highs, Wall Street was poised to open with losses on Friday, a possible sign that President Donald Trump's wave of tariff letters is again raising concern among investors.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell 0.5% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 0.6%.

Trump said in a letter Thursday that he will raise taxes on many imported goods from Canada to 35%, deepening the rift between the longtime North American allies. The letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is an aggressive increase to the top 25% tariff rates that Trump first imposed in March.

''Just as the market was catching its breath at new highs — drunk on Nvidia fumes and blissfully ignoring the dollar's quiet groan — President Trump tugged the rug again,'' Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

''Asian equities, initially hopeful, wilted into flat lines as if someone had pulled the plug on the optimism generator. There's a growing sense now that risk has become radioactive — tradable, but only in hazmat gloves,'' Innes added.

Following weeks of anxiety and wild swings in the market spurred by Trump's tariff rollouts in the spring, markets have been relatively stable the past couple of months, steadily rising to record levels.

Meanwhile, bitcoin climbed to a new all-time high Friday, briefly eclipsing $118,000 before settling around $117,600.

The token's price jump came amid bullish momentum across risk assets and coincides with Nvidia's surge to a $4 trillion valuation. It also comes days before the U.S. Congress' Crypto Week on July 14, where lawmakers will debate a series of bills that could define the regulatory framework for the industry.

Levi Strauss jumped 6.4% overnight after the jeans maker easily beat Wall Street's sales and profit targets and raised its full-year forecast, despite including the impact of higher tariffs.

Shares of T-Mobile were largely unchanged after the Justice Department announced Thursday that it would not prevent the company from closing on its proposed $4.4 billion acquisition of U.S. Cellular. That deal, announced more than a year ago, had come under antitrust scrutiny from the Justice Department under President Joe Biden's administration.

U.S. Cellular shares were up a modest 1.2% in premarket.

In midday European trading, Germany's DAX and Paris's CAC 40 each shed 0.8%, while Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.4%.

In Asia, shares were mixed. Chinese markets were sharply higher in earlier trading, buoyed by signs of possible additional stimulus measures in China and Goldman Sachs Group's upgrade of Hong Kong stocks to market-weight. The gains were later trimmed, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong finishing 0.6% higher to 24,172.50, and the Shanghai Composite up 0.1% to 3,510.18 .

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed 0.2% lower to 39,569.68, while South Korea's Kospi shed 0.2% to 3,173.77.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.1% to 8,580.10, and India's BSE Sensex fell 0.8% to 82,518.15.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 77 cents to $67.34 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard for oil prices, gained 68 cents to $69.32 per barrel.

The dollar was trading at 146.95 Japanese yen, up from 146.20 yen. The euro slid to $1.1695 from $1.1704.