A Downing Street spokesperson said:“The Prime Minister spoke to the Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney this evening.

“They discussed their commitment to working together to maintain global economic stability in the wake of the announcement from the United States this week.

“An all-out trade war is in no-one’s interest, they agreed.

“Both agreed on the importance of free and open trade between like-minded nations, and the Prime Minister stated that trading blocs such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership will be important in this new global era.

“Prime Minister Carney thanked the Prime Minister for his leadership on Ukraine and reaffirmed his commitment to Canada playing a role in the Coalition of the Willing.

“Looking ahead, the Prime Minister said he was looking forward to travelling to Canada for the G7 Summit in June. They agreed to stay in close contact.”

India does not plan to retaliate against US president Donald Trump’s 26 per cent tariff on imports from the Asian nation, an Indian government official said, citing ongoing talks for a deal between the countries.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s administration has looked into a clause of Trump’s tariff order that offers a possible reprieve for trading partners who “take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements”, the official told Reuters.

New Delhi sees an advantage in being one of the first nations to have started talks over a trade deal with Washington, and is better placed than Asian peers like China, Vietnam, and Indonesia, which have been hit by higher US tariffs.

Taiwan’s president Lai Ching-te said this morning that the island does not seek to impose retaliatory tariffs against the US.

“Instead, we’ll start talking from bilateral ‘zero tariffs’,” said on X. “To ensure Taiwan’s competitiveness, we’ll increase US imports and adopt other measures. Working together, we’ll usher in a golden age of shared prosperity.”

US president Donald Trump last week imposed a 32 per cent imports duty on Taiwan, which has caused a big sell-off in markets this morning – Taiwan was observing a public holiday on Thursday and Friday so trading was closed.

Taiwan’s benchmark index has now dropped to its lowest level in more than a year and was poised for its biggest one-day percentage drop since at least 1990, LSEG data showed.

China, the EU and Canada have said they plan to retaliate with their own tariffs on US products. Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, has already announced its own 34 per cent reciprocal tariffs on US goods.

India’s Nifty50 and Sensex indices crashed to 9-month lows, dropping around 5 per cent during opening trade this morning.

IT companies, which earn a significant share of their revenue from the US, collectively lost around 7 per cent.

The broader small-caps and mid-caps lost 6.2 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.

US president Donald Trump’s top economic advisers have sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the US in the global trade order.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with the US since Mr Trump imposed tariffs on dozens of countries last Wednesday.

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said on CBS News that the tariffs would remain in place “for days and weeks”.

Taiwan stocks plummeted almost 10 per cent this morning in their first trading since US president Donald Trump announced new import tariffs last week.

After opening following a two-day market holiday on Thursday and Friday, Taiwan’s benchmark index dropped to its lowest level in more than a year and was poised for its biggest one-day percentage drop since at least 1990, LSEG data showed.

Taiwan’s top financial regulator announced yesterday it would impose temporary curbs lasting all this week on short-selling of shares to help deal with potential market turmoil from the tariffs.

The island, hit with a 32 per cent duty, was singled out by Mr Trump as among the US trading partners with one of the highest trade surpluses with the country.

Taiwan on Friday announced a T$88bn ($2.65bn) support package for companies hit by the tariffs, while president Lai Ching-te said the island would buy more from and invest more in the US, with the aim of a zero-tariff regime between the two.

US president Donald Trump has claimed that China’s objections to new tariffs stalled a deal to sell off TikTok to keep it operating in the US.

“We had a deal pretty much for TikTok — not a deal but pretty close — and then China changed the deal because of tariffs,” Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One while returning to Washington.

“If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they would have approved that deal in 15 minutes, which shows the power of tariffs.”

China is facing 54 per cent tariffs on US exports after Mr Trump slapped Beijing with 34 per cent tariff last week on top of the exitising 20 per cent he had already imposed earlier this year.

ByteDance’s TikTok was forced out of the US after a 2024 law mandated the company to divest TikTok’s US unit by 19 January this year.

The company has balked at selling a lucrative business, which has been valued from $20bn to as high as $150bn, according to Bloomberg.

Asian share markets crashed this morning as fears of a global trade war led investors to ramp up bets on the risk of recession.

Hong Kong and Chinese stocks were particularly badly hit as markets around the world crumbled in the face of a widening global trade war and fears it will unleash a deep recession.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell almost 10 per cent in morning trade which, if sustained, would make for the benchmark’s largest daily fall since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Banking stocks collapsed, with Hong Kong-listed shares of HSBC and Standard Chartered tumbling 15 per cent.China’s CSI300 blue-chip index fell more than 5 per cent with selling in nearly every sector. China’s yuan slipped to its lowest since January and bonds rallied sharply.

China, which is now facing US tariffs of 54 per cent, responded in kind on Friday by slapping extra levies on US imports.