Stocks and oil prices fell sharply on Friday while traditional safe havens rose after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to further escalate his trade war with China "this afternoon," following a new round of retaliatory tariffs from Beijing. Earlier on Friday China's Commerce Ministry said in a statement it would impose tariffs on about $75 billion in imports from the United States including some agricultural products, crude oil and small aircraft. Trump responded mid-morning in a series of tweets, writing that "American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China." Trump cannot force U.S. companies to abandon China and he gave no detail on how he might proceed with any such order. But his series of tweets was seen as a harbinger for even further escalation of the trade war. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 547.71 points, or 2.09%, to 25,704.53, the S&P 500 lost 65.23 points, or 2.23%, to 2,857.72 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 215.03 points, or 2.69%, to 7,776.36. The pan-European STOXX 600 index turned sharply lower after Trump's tweets, dropping 1% in the last half hour of trading to close down 0.78%, while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe dropped 1.29%. Emerging market stocks lost 0.48% and U.S. dollar-denominated Nikkei futures fell 1.8%. --More 23:02 LOCAL TIME 20:02 GMT 0015 www.spa.gov.sa/1961234
