SEOUL, April 7, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - South Korean stocks tumbled over 5 percent Monday as Asian markets sank and US futures signaled steep Wall Street losses, driven by Donald Trump's harsh tariffs despite countries seeking compromise with the defiant president.

Trump's tariff offensive has sparked a global stock market rout, raising fears of a broader trade war and recession.

South Korea's benchmark KOSPI index dived 5.26 percent, or 129.57 points, to 2,335.85, triggering a so-called sidecar mechanism that briefly halted some trading for the first time in eight months.

Sidecars kick in when index futures experience significant drops or spikes, pausing programme trading for five minutes to mitigate drastic fluctuations.

Samsung Electronics, the market bellwether, dropped 4.28 percent, while SK hynix plummeted nearly 6.5 percent.

"South Korea has a very high trade dependency; it's a country that lives off trade, so when the US imposes excessively high tariffs like this, we become one of the hardest-hit economies," Kim Dae-jong at Sejong University in Seoul told AFP.

Trump's "America First" policy is "a major threat to South Korea's economy and national security," added Kim.

China retaliated against the United States on Friday, announcing it would impose tit-for-tat tariffs of 34 percent on all US goods from April 10.

With the trade war escalating, stocks in Asia took a heavy hammering when trading resumed this week.

In early trade on Monday in Japan, the Nikkei 225 was off an eye-watering 6.5 percent, while stocks in Taiwan were down almost 10 percent and in Singapore 8.5 percent.