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Markets rediscovered volatility on Friday after President Trump’s latest diplomatic haiku: threaten 100% tariffs, cancel a meeting, then wink that maybe he’ll still go. Traders reacted like toddlers hearing thunder for the first time: loudly and with tears. Of course, for the second time.

The change in percentages as of Friday, Oct. 10, 2025 are as follows:

• Dow: -1.9
• Nasdaq: -3.6
• Nasdaq 100: -3.5
• S&P 500: -2.7
• S&P 400: -2.8
• S&P 600: -3.2

It was the worst day for stocks since April’s “Liberation Day” selloff, a patriotic name for an unpatriotic event. The S&P 500 fell 2.7%, the Nasdaq 100 dumped 3.5%, and the so-called Magnificent Seven lost 3.8%, proving magnificence to be as unshakeable as a Jell-O skyscraper in an earthquake.

The trigger? President Trump’s post on Truth Social, the platform where policy ideas go to die of exposure. He accused China of being “very hostile,” and vowed “a massive increase” in tariffs.

Ah yes, the tariff, Trump’s Swiss Army knife for every problem.

Within hours, he elaborated: a 100% levy on Chinese goods and export controls on “any and all critical software,” beginning Nov. 1 (Happy Halloween, supply chain). He added that he might still meet Xi Jinping—“we’ll see what happens”—statesman code for stuck in traffic, might bail.

The VIX spiked above 20, its first foray into double-digit anxiety since spring. Traders clutching volatility ETFs looked smug for the first time since the March massacre, while bond yields tiptoed lower. A flight to safety? Possibly a pirouette to panic.

Beijing chuckled at how easily it gets the POTUS thumbs a-tapping.

Middle Kingdom customs officers reportedly blocked shipments of Nvidia chips, regulators opened an antitrust probe into Qualcomm’s Autotalks deal, and someone decided US cargo ships should pay new fees at Chinese ports—a red-taped middle finger aimed at the Oval.

Trump still doesn’t understand that he brought a tariff to a rare-earth fight. The real blow was Beijing’s sweeping new export controls on rare earths and related technologies, its latest flex in the long game of mineral leverage ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting this month. It’s Beijing’s way of showing the White House what foresight looks like.

Rare earths have been China’s ace from the start, positioned by the country’s patient planners after the first Trump trade tiff back in the twenty-teens. If only the US administration had paused to plan before tweet-starting its new trade travesty.

Tariffs are wind. Rare earths are Earth: physical, real. In trade, the conceptual loses to the tangible.

By afternoon, Wall Street resembled a herd of gazelles realizing the watering hole was a crocodile farm. The closing bell merely stopped the screaming.

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