Stocks are lower on Monday, the first trading session of June, on renewed trade tensions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 300 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were down 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.
China said on Monday that President Donald Trump’s accusations that Beijing had violated the consensus reached in Geneva trade talks were “groundless”, and promised to take forceful measures to safeguard its interests.
The comment by the commerce ministry was in response to Trump’s remarks on Friday that China had breached a bilateral deal to roll back tariffs.
The ministry said China had implemented and actively upheld the agreement reached last month in Geneva, while the U.S. had introduced multiple “discriminatory restrictive” measures against China.
“The U.S. government has unilaterally and repeatedly provoked new economic and trade frictions, exacerbating uncertainty and instability in bilateral economic and trade relations,” the ministry said in a statement.
Trump on Friday also announced a doubling of import tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50%.
While China is the world’s largest steel producer and exporter, it ships very little to the United States after a 25% tariff imposed in 2018 shut most Chinese steel out of the market. China ranks third among aluminum suppliers.
Reuters contributed to this report