Despite being excluded from US President Donald Trump’s list of retaliatory tariffs, Mexican equities fell 4.87 percent on Friday as global markets panicked over the potential start of a trade war.
Two days after Trump announced broad import charges on dozens of countries, including Argentina, Argentine stocks also suffered, plunging more than 7% in Friday trading.
The Mexican defeat occurred even though stocks ended Thursday’s trading day slightly higher, up 0.54 percent, indicating some early relief in the second-largest economy in Latin America after avoiding Trump’s infamous “Liberation Day” tariffs.
Argentina, the third-largest economy in Latin America, and Brazil, the largest, were not spared if Mexico was.
Argentina’s flagship Merval Index fell 7.38 percent while Brazil’s Bovespa Index lost 2.96 percent.
Both countries were hit with 10 percent tariffs, like much of Latin America — at the lower end of a spectrum ranging upwards to 50 percent.
