07:31 AM EDT, 04/03/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes fell before Thursday's open as investors gauged the impact of President Donald Trump's sweeping new tariffs against the country's trading partners.

The S&P 500 tumbled 3.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2.9% and the Nasdaq fell 3.9% in premarket activity. The indexes closed the previous session higher but fell in after-hours trading following Trump's tariff announcement.

Trump imposed duties of 34% on Chinese goods and 24% on Japanese items. The world's largest economy will charge 20% tariffs on European Union items coming into the US and 10% on UK goods. Varying levels of tariffs will be imposed on Vietnam, Taiwan and India, among other countries.

"That is a significant negative terms of trade shock to the US and global economies that will harm growth, harm employment, and raise prices -- thus complicating the outlook for monetary policy in major economies," Scotiabank said in a late Wednesday client note.

Shares of major companies, including Apple ( AAPL ) , Nvidia ( NVDA ) , Tesla (TSLA), Amazon.com ( AMZN ) and Nike ( NKE ) , fell sharply before the bell on the tariff announcement. Sellers of imported goods were also among the hardest hit. Home-furnishing retailer RH (RH) plummeted 28% as it reported fiscal fourth-quarter results below market expectations.

US Treasury yields moved down in premarket action, with the two-year rate dropping 8.3 basis points to 3.82% and the 10-year rate falling 9.7 basis points to 4.1%.

Data from Automatic Data Processing (ADP) on Wednesday showed that employment growth in the US private sector topped Wall Street's projections for March, while pay gains decelerated. The government's nonfarm payroll data for March is scheduled to be released on Friday.

Thursday's economic calendar has the weekly jobless claims bulletin and the international trade in goods and services report for February at 8:30 am ET. The March purchasing managers' index composite final report from S&P Global (SPGI) is due at 9:45 am, while the Institute for Supply Management's services index for the same month follows at 10 am.

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson is scheduled to speak at 12:30 pm, while Fed Governor Lisa Cook's remarks are due at 2:30 pm.

On the earnings front, ConAgra Brands ( CAG ) , Acuity (AYI), Lamb Weston ( LW ) , MSC Industrial Direct ( MSM ) and Lindsay (LNN) are among the companies reporting their latest results before the bell.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped 4.8% to $68.29 a barrel with the latest tariffs expected to impede fuel demand. On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration said commercial crude stockpiles in the US unexpectedly increased last week. The weekly EIA natural-gas supplies report posts at 10:30 am.

Gold moved down 1.3% to $3,125 per troy ounce. Bitcoin decreased 3.6% to $83,392.