Wall Street markets tumbled in afternoon trading on a tweet from U-S President Donald Trump who is slapping a new tariff of 10 per cent on about 300-billion-dollars worth of products from China beginning September 1st. The news come after an American delegation returned to Washington from what the White House described as a constructive round of trade talks. TD Wealth analyst Kim Parlee says Trump’s plan to impose tariffs comes just a day after the fed rate cute, which is seen as insurance to cover decisions like this one from Trump. Parlee sees this as leverage by Trump as the the United States and China continue high level trade talks. Here’s the closing market numbers.

TSX composite index closed down 29.52 points at 16,377.04.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 280.85 points at 26,583.42.
The S & P 500 index was down 26.82 points at 2,953.56
Nasdaq composite was down 64.30 points at 8,111.12.
The Canadian dollar traded at an average of 75.66 cents US, down compared with Wednesday’s average of 76.06 cents US.
The September crude contract was down US$4.63 at US$53.95 per barrel and the September natural gas contract was down 3.1 cents at US$2.20 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down $5.40 at US$1,432.40 an ounce and the September copper contract was down half a cent at US$2.66 a pound.