Markets Hold Steady as Trump Offers Few Details on New Trade Deals

A series of recent trade frameworks unveiled by President Donald Trump have drawn scrutiny because the administration has provided only sketchy or sometimes contradictory details of the pacts, analysts at Axios, Barron’s and Yahoo Finance reported Tuesday. While Trump has touted agreements in principle with the European Union, Japan and Vietnam, formal language has yet to be released and negotiators are still drafting legally binding text. Separately, discussions continue this week with China in Sweden and with India on unresolved issues. Despite the information gaps, financial markets have reacted calmly. Strategists told Yahoo Finance that investors view even vague outlines as preferable to the tariff escalations previously feared. Wolfe Research wrote that a perceived trend toward capping many sectoral tariffs at roughly 15% is “better-than-feared,” helping underpin equities. Economic modeling by the Yale Budget Lab suggests that if every tariff announced so far is implemented, the average effective U.S. tariff rate would climb to 18.2%, the highest since 1934. For now, however, benchmark stock indexes remain near recent highs, indicating that investors are discounting the risk of a more severe trade shock until firmer details emerge.