Analysts for the financial services firm Wedbush Securities said it's becoming "crystal clear this tariff/U.S policy will cause pure chaos to the global auto industry and will raise the prices of a typical car to a U.S. consumer by $5k to $10k out of the gates."

“We stress that the concept of a US car maker with parts all from the US is a fictional tale that does not exist and would take years to make this concept a reality,” the analysts said in a note sent out this morning.

CEO confidence in the economy has been falling ahead of Trump's tariff announcement.

Data shared by Apollo Global Management found that corporate leaders' confidence in the economy has declined to levels not seen since 2012.

Torsten Slok, chief economist of investment giant Apollo, points out that chief financial officer confidence has also ticked down in recent months, both in terms of how they feel about their own companies and the national economy.

With a little more than an hour to go before U.S. markets open, major stock indexes are set to open lower.

Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq were down 0.9%, while S&P 500 Futures were off 0.7%. Dow futures were lower by 0.5%.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq just finished their worst quarter in more than two years.

French Industry Minister Marc Ferracci said today that Europe would respond to Trump's tariffs in a proportionate manner but would not escalate tensions under any circumstances.

“Europe has always been on the side of negotiation and calming things down, because trade wars, you know, only produce losers,” Ferracci told the French broadcaster RMC radio.

Japan's government said today that it had expressed to “various levels” of the Trump administration that it should not unilaterally implement new tariffs against the country.

“We will carefully examine the details of these tariff measures and their potential impact on our nation while also continuing to strongly urge the U.S. to reconsider its actions,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters today, adding that Japan would continue to hold close consultations with the U.S.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters a day earlier that his country would continue to examine the impact of U.S.-levied tariffs on domestic industries and employment.

“We will immediately set up special consultation offices in approximately 1,000 locations throughout Japan as a short-term response,” to the measures, he said, adding that these offices would aim to address the concerns and anxieties of small- and medium-sized businesses.

Much uncertainty remains about whether Trump’s promise to slap a 10% tariff on Canadian imports will include the natural gas and electricity that flow cross-border into some U.S. states and into households.

Combined with reciprocal tariffs, such duties could spike utility bills in those areas by as much as 20% — especially in the New England region, where many homes are heated by fuel oil — according to projections by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state administrators of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Consumer advocates say the Trump administration has also made it more difficult for some households to shoulder such an increase by eliminating the staff responsible for managing LIHEAP in its purge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“For those who are already struggling to cover their bills, the additional costs will be burdensome and many will have to make tough choices between paying for their home energy bill or paying for their medicine, food, and other essentials,” NEADA said in a release last week.

A self-prescribed deadline by a Hong Kong private conglomerate to sell off its two ports along the Panama Canal came to pass today, after Communist Party newspapers blasted the plan as undermining Beijing’s interest.

CK Hutchison, owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing, was expected to finalize “definitive documentation” which was to be signed on or before today, according to a joint March 4 announcement by the firm and the U.S. investment firm BlackRock, which would be taking over the ports. 

The apparent delay came as Beijing’s market regulator last week announced it will review the port sales “to protect fair market competition and safeguard public interests.” The Beijing-controlled newspaper Ta Kung Pao and others also published several articles last month criticizing the sale.

A number of congressional Republicans are publicly voicing concern over the potential for a prolonged trade war and its effect on American farmers as Trump prepares to announce a new wave of tariffs.

House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., told NBC News that he has asked the White House to exempt certain goods that are important to the U.S. agricultural industry, such as fertilizer and peat moss.

“I’ve kind of pointed out the things that I’m hoping” will be excluded, he said. “I talk with anybody who will listen to me. ... They’ve been really good about input.”

Thompson also said he hopes Congress won’t need to bail out farmers with an emergency aid package, as it did during the first Trump administration. But, he said, “we’ll be prepared to do that” again if needed.

It has been four months since Henry Barnes, the mayor of Bayou La Batre, a struggling fishing village in southern Alabama, wrote to Trump for help.  

A flood of cheap imported shrimp is killing the local seafood market, he wrote, thanks to “low and non-existent tariffs.” He invited Trump, for whom he voted, to come visit Bayou La Batre, known as Alabama’s Seafood Capital. 

But thus far he hasn’t heard back. “He’ll eventually get around to us,” said Barnes, a third-generation net-maker. “I mean, we’re just a small town.”