The price of Bitcoin whipsawed on Friday as China countered U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs with sweeping levies of its own and investors mulled fresh labor market data.
The leading cryptocurrency was recently changing hands below $83,000, a 1% increase over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. Bitcoin rose as high as $84,600 on Friday morning Eastern Time before dipping to $81,700 an hour and a half later.
Major altcoins were largely in positive territory with XRP and Solana rising more than 6% and nearly 4%, respectively.
China plans on imposing a 34% import tax on all U.S. products next Thursday, a day after Trump’s latest tariffs take effect, Beijing’s Finance Ministry said. The ministry derided the president’s market-shaking trade talk as “a typical unilateral bullying practice.”
What’s more, China’s Commerce Ministry said it will cut off 11 U.S. firms from trade, classifying them as “unreliable entities,” while adding 16 companies to its export control list.
China is the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, and Trump on Wednesday took aim at the nation, slapping a 34% tariff on top of an existing 20% tariff for Chinese goods. Trump also closed a “de minimis” loophole exempting packages valued under $800 from added duties.
Following Trump’s “Liberation Day,” the S&P 500 had its worst day since June 2020, as stocks dropped globally on Thursday. Equities continued swooning on Friday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq set to close in a bear market—or fall 20% from its record high.
“The S&P 500 is down roughly 5% this week as investors brace for trade-driven earnings headwinds,” David Hernandez, a crypto investment specialist at crypto asset manager 21Shares, told Decrypt. “Bitcoin, meanwhile, has shown impressive resilience.”
But ING’s Chief International Economist, James Knightley, told Decrypt that the escalation in Trump’s trade war largely overshadows blockbuster job growth in March.
“It’s ancient history, given the situation we are in now,” he said. “We’re in a new environment where post-tariff announcements, the economic environment is looking much more challenging.”
The U.S. Labor Department said on Friday that nonfarm payrolls increased 228,000 in March, blowing past economists’ forecast of 135,000 jobs, according to Trading Economics, although the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1% in February.
Knightley said that plummeting equity prices, concerns about the impact of tariffs on household spending power, and fears about Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative hampering growth outweigh an uptick in the unemployment rate.
Employers based in the U.S. announced 275,240 job cuts in March, spiking 205% higher from a year ago, according to a Thursday report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The outplacement firm said the cuts were driven by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“The economic outlook appears much, much gloomier, and we have to brace for some much, much weaker jobs numbers in subsequent months,” Knightley said.
In a speech at a business journalists’ conference in Arlington, Virginia Friday, U.S. central bank Chair Jerome Powell noted potential tariff-related challenges ahead that could complicate the Federal Reserves decisions on interest rate cuts that Trump has been demanding.
“Higher tariffs will be working their way through our economy and are likely to raise inflation in the coming quarters,” Powell said, adding that the Federal Reserve was “well positioned to wait for greater clarity before considering any adjustments to our policy stance.”
“It is too soon to say what will be the appropriate path for monetary policy,” he said.
UPDATE (April 4, 2025, 12:52 p.m. ET): Adds Powell comments.
Edited by James Rubin
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