Markets crash as Trump says he could wait for U.S.-China deal until after 2020 election

Are we in for another market crash in the month of December? We are only three days into the new month and it is certainly looking that way.

What was supposed to be a great end to a great year because of a supposed trade agreement has metastasized into an ocean of red ink.

Speaking in London for the NATO summit, President Donald Trump threatened to slap members with tariffs. He specifically called out France by threatening to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on $2.4 billion in French imports. This would be in retaliation to France’s digital tax on American tech giants like Google and Amazon.

But the big news was the president suggesting that a U.S.-China trade agreement could come until after the 2020 election.

“In some ways, I think it’s better to wait until after the election if you want to know the truth. But I’m not going to say that, I just think that,” he told reporters.

This comes one day after the administration said that it will not roll back or delay the planned December 15 tariffs on the remaining $156 billion in Chinese goods.

As expected, the markets are in freefall.

The Dow Jones fell as much as 400 points, the S&P 500 dropped one percent, the Nasdaq shed one percent, Asian markets are in the red, and the leading European indexes ended their sessions lower.