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(Bloomberg) — Stocks fell along with equity-index futures as President Donald Trump ratcheted up trade tensions again ahead of next week’s deadline for higher tariffs.

A gauge of Asian equities retreated 0.3%, with South Korean shares leading with a 1.6% drop. Trump said his administration may begin sending out letters to trading partners as soon as Friday, setting unilateral tariff rates, ahead of the July 9 deadline for negotiations. Equity-index futures for the US and Europe both declined by 0.3%. Gold rose 0.5% while the dollar dipped 0.2%. There’s no cash trading in Treasuries due to a holiday in the US Friday.

Investors are staying on the sidelines awaiting outcomes from various trade negotiations amid the current pause on Trump’s April tariffs, which he put on hold for 90 days to allow time for talks. Stocks have rallied to record highs as initial concerns that the levies will push the US into a recession have eased. On Thursday, the US jobs growth exceeded expectations and all but erased bets for a July rate cut.

“There is still uncertainty out there, but one thing we do know is the US economy seems to be holding up relatively well,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia.

 

Trump has long threatened that if countries fail to reach deals with the US before next week’s deadline, he would simply impose rates on them, raising the stakes for trading partners who have rushed to secure agreements with his administration.

“We’re probably going to be sending some letters out, starting probably tomorrow, maybe 10 a day to various countries saying what they’re going to pay to do business with the US,” Trump said.

In separate remarks, Trump said the countries will start paying tariffs on Aug. 1, but declined to comment on which nations will get the letter.

Investors such as Jung In Yun, chief executive officer at Fibonacci Asset Management Global Pte. in Singapore, are holding more cash and waiting for Monday to see how the market reacts.

“Portfolio has more cash than normal times for now,” he said. “I find too much optimism among other managers a bit uncomfortable,” he said about trimming some equities exposure to shield from potential drop in the market.

Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pushed back against the idea there has been little progress in negotiations with the US on a trade deal as a deadline looms for a 24% across-the-board tariff to take force.

Investors are cautious about the US sending out letters to trading partners, said Yugo Tsuboi, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities.

“The reason why market sentiment has not been as strong as it should have been is because of the trade negotiations,” Tsuboi said. Japanese stocks dipped 0.1%.

Treasuries fell and the dollar rose Thursday in a sign traders see less pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates after US jobs in June. Swap traders saw almost no chance of a July Fed cut, compared with a roughly 25% probability seen before the data. The chance of a move in September ebbed to about 70%.

Meanwhile, Trump secured a sweeping shift in US domestic policy as the House passed a $3.4 trillion fiscal package that cuts taxes, curtails spending on safety-net programs. A $5 trillion increase in the US debt limit in the package eliminates the risk of a market-rattling payment default the Treasury had forecast could come as soon as mid-August without congressional action.

The president said he plans to sign the bill on Friday at a 4 p.m. ceremony at the White House.

Separately, the Chinese government intends to cancel part of a two-day summit with European Union leaders planned for later this month, in the latest sign of the tensions between Brussels and Beijing.

In commodities, oil steadied before an OPEC+ meeting that’s set to deliver another oversized production hike, threatening to swell a glut forecast for later this year.

Corporate Highlights:

• India’s regulator temporarily barred Jane Street Group from accessing the local securities market. Jane Street disputed the regulator’s findings.
• Singapore introduced fresh measures to tame housing prices.
• Hong Kong developer New World Development Co. is returning to the spotlight this month as investors’ focus turns to its plan to raise as much as $2 billion through a new loan

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• S&P 500 futures fell 0.3% as of 1:32 p.m. Tokyo time
• Japan’s Topix fell 0.3%
• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was little changed
• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.6%
• The Shanghai Composite rose 0.4%
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures fell 0.4%

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%
• The euro rose 0.1% to $1.1774
• The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 144.44 per dollar
• The offshore yuan rose 0.1% to 7.1629 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin fell 0.7% to $109,242.01
• Ether fell 0.8% to $2,579.58

Bonds

• Japan’s 10-year yield advanced one basis point to 1.450%
• Australia’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.20%

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.2% to $66.86 a barrel
• Spot gold rose 0.4% to $3,340.86 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Joanne Wong, Winnie Hsu and Momoka Yokoyama.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Tokyo, July 4, 2025 – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engine & Turbocharger, Ltd. (MHIET), a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, announces a new lineup to SGP M450, a gas cogeneration system jointly developed with Toho Gas Co., Ltd., capable of hydrogen co-firing at a maximum of 15 vol%, with power output of 450kW. It is launched for Japan market at present.

To allow for hydrogen co-firing, the two companies modified the fuel gas and engine control systems of the GS6R2 city gas mono-firing engine to develop a hydrogen co-firing engine. More than 500 hours of demonstration testing was conducted at the Toho Gas Technology Research Institute (Tokai, Aichi Prefecture), confirming the reliability of hydrogen mixing and the reduction in CO₂ emissions.
In the demonstration testing, various simulated operating patterns were applied to verify capabilities required for power generation equipment to respond to fluctuations in power demand and maintain stable operation. The tests confirmed that there is no risk of abnormal combustion, and that the system can be operated in the same manner as the city gas mono-firing model.

The hydrogen blend ratio has been set at a maximum of 15 vol% to minimize the scope of change from conventional natural gas engines. The system has two operating modes, city gas 13A mono-firing mode and hydrogen co-firing mode, and can be switched between modes at any point during loaded operation. In hydrogen co-firing mode, only city gas is used for starting the engine, which means the same amount of initial load as city gas mono-firing mode can be accepted even in the event of a power outage, making the system highly reliable for business continuity plans (BCP).

In addition, for customers who are considering the use of hydrogen in the future, MHIET is also offering the “Hydrogen Ready” package. The system is configured for city gas mono-firing at the time of installation, but some equipment and functions necessary for hydrogen co-firing are also pre-incorporated, allowing for a shortened work period when the site is converted for hydrogen co-firing.

Cogeneration systems, owing to the expected reduction in the environmental load through energy conservation, are considered one of the distributed energy resources that should be pursued further to achieve carbon neutrality. Moreover, since they are power sources able to respond to power outages resulting from large-scale disasters or other emergencies, they are also expected to play a role in strengthening resilience.(Note) Going forward, MHIET will continue to promote the greater use of hydrogen and the widespread adoption of distributed power generation, contributing to the realization of a low-carbon and decarbonized world, and improving the resilience of society as a whole.

• Resilience denotes toughness, recuperative power, and flexibility. It specifically refers to such initiatives as development of disaster-resilient infrastructure, expanding cooperation with businesses to support quick recovery, and strengthening information dissemination.

British electric car sales rose by a third in the first half of 2025 after the strongest June for overall car sales since before the Covid pandemic.

The number of battery electric car sales rose 34.6% to 224,838 units in the first six months of the year, according to preliminary data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group.

New car sales rose 6.8% year-on-year in June to 191,200 units, the best sales figures for the month since 2019. A quarter of all June sales, or nearly 47,400, were electric.

Separate sales figures published by the thinktank New AutoMotive, suggested electric sales were buoyed in June compared with May by the launch of the new version of the Model Y from Tesla, which has remained the biggest electric car seller in the UK despite the controversy around the support for far-right politicians of its founder, Elon Musk. Ford achieved the fastest growth in UK electric car sales, New AutoMotive said.

The UK car industry has struggled to increase sales to pre-pandemic levels as potential buyers have been hit by the cost of living crisis after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

British car factories have also had to contend with a major slowdown in response to extra US tariffs of 25% announced by Donald Trump in March. UK car production last month fell to its lowest level for May since 1949 as manufacturers cut back shipments.

Those factories received respite on Monday when a lower tariff rate of 10% kicked in after a limited trade deal was agreed between the UK and US. The 10% rate will apply to the first 100,000 vehicles exported to the US.

Despite these difficulties, car sales have been rising over the course of 2025, although the industry has said the numbers have been flattered by discounts which it says are unsustainable. Discounts have been targeted particularly at electric car buyers as manufacturers try to meet targets set under the government’s zero-emission vehicle mandate.

So far in 2025 electric sales have made up 21.6% of all sales, the SMMT’s preliminary data suggested. That is below the 28% target, although “flexibilities” in the rules mean the effective target is significantly lower.

Dan Caesar, the chief executive of Electric Vehicles UK, a group lobbying for pro-electric vehicle policies, said the June figures were still encouraging.

“The robustness of battery EV sales as a percentage of the market demonstrates we’re in a new phase of uptake,” he said. “Savvy consumers see the trend, and the savings. Better and cheaper BEVs, in addition to genuine competition, should see sales in the second half continue to grow.”

New AutoMotive’s data also suggested that demand for electric vans had risen sharply. Electric van sales increased by 50% in the first half of 2025 compared with last year to account for one in every 10 sales.