Donald Trump has ruled out pausing the sweeping tariffs he has imposed on countries across the world after a rollercoaster day on Wall Street that ended with most of the US markets down.

Intense swings were seen on the three main stock market indexes on Monday as economists fear the US president’s “Liberation Day” levies could cause a global recession.

The S&P 500 closed the day 0.23% lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.91%, and the Nasdaq ended in positive territory, up 0.10%.

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All three indexes started the day sharply lower, and the Dow plunged as many as 1,700 points following even worse losses elsewhere in the world.

But it suddenly surged to a gain of nearly 900 points in the late morning. The S&P 500, meanwhile, went from a loss of 4.7% to a leap of 3.4%, which would have been its biggest jump in years.

The sudden rise appears to have been the result of a social media post that incorrectly claimed that Kevin Hassett, White House National Economic Council director, said Mr Trump was considering a 90-day pause in tariffs for all countries except China.

Reports first emerged through the US business news channel CNBC.

The White House later told CNBC any talk of a 90-day pause was “fake news”.

Financial pain hammers investments around the world

The financial pain once again hammered investments around the world, with stocks in Hong Kong plunging 13.2% for their worst day since 1997.

Meanwhile, the UK’s benchmark stock index, the FTSE 100, closed 4.38% down.

It is one of the biggest drops in years, in line with the falls seen in the early days of COVID-19 lockdowns, but less steep than the 4.95% loss seen on Friday.

Only a handful of the 100 most valuable companies listed on the London Stock Exchange saw any boost to their share price all day.

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Trump ‘not looking’ at pausing tariffs

When asked in the Oval Office on Monday evening whether he would pause tariffs, Mr Trump said: “We’re not looking at that.”

The president added that affected countries have been negotiating with his administration, which he said will try and make “fair deals” with each of them.

“We’re going to get fair deals with every country and if we don’t they are not going to be able to participate with the US,” he added.

Mr Trump also claimed the US “has been ripped off by many countries over the years”, adding: “We can’t do it anymore. We can’t be the stupid people anymore.”

Analysis: Tariffs could herald one of the most painful episodes in modern times

Trump threatens additional 50% tariff on China

It came after the US president threatened in a post on his Truth Social platform that he would impose an additional 50% tariff on China if the nation does not withdraw its 34% retaliatory tariff.

Beijing imposed the duty after Mr Trump announced his tariff on China last week.

The US president added in his Truth Social post that Beijing has until Tuesday to remove its retaliatory tariff.

Some investors are holding onto hope that Mr Trump may still lower his tariffs after negotiating with countries, and Mr Trump said on Sunday that he has heard from leaders “dying to make a deal”.

‘Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something’

A drop in tariffs relatively soon could help avoid a recession, but whether that can happen is still uncertain.

On Sunday, Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he does not want markets to fall. But he also said he was not concerned about a sell-off, saying “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”.

Mr Trump has given several reasons for his stiff tariffs, including to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, which is a process that could take years.

The US president has said he wanted to bring down the numbers for how much more the United States imports from other countries versus how much it sends to them.

“The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,” JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders on Monday.

“Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth”, added Mr Dimon, who is one of the most influential executives on Wall Street.

A second child in Texas with measles has died as the outbreak of the childhood disease reached nearly 500 cases in the state, officials have said.

The unvaccinated schoolgirl, who had no underlying health conditions, died on Thursday in hospital from measles pulmonary failure, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.

She was being treated for complications from the illness, a spokesperson for University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock said in an email.

The girl was recently diagnosed with the viral disease, NBC, Sky’s US partner said, quoting from the hospital’s statement issued on Sunday.

Two children have now died in Texas since an outbreak of measles in late January in Gaines County, where the vaccination rate is about 82%, below the 95% believed to ensure those who cannot be vaccinated are safe.

An adult in New Mexico is also suspected of having died from measles, NBC said, calling the deaths the first from the disease in the US for 10 years.

US President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, said that, if the outbreak continues, his administration will “have to take action very strongly”.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, identified the child as eight-year-old Daisy Hildebrand and said he visited Texas on Sunday to comfort the child’s family.

Pictures were published of him at the girl’s funeral in Seminole, northwest Texas.

In a post on X, Mr Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic who says it should be a personal choice, said vaccines are nonetheless the best protection against the illness.

He said the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles”, confirming that, as of Sunday, there were 642 confirmed cases of measles in the US, 499 of those in Texas.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said, as of Friday, 481 cases of measles had been confirmed, a rise of 14% in a week.

They include six infants and toddlers at a Lubbock day care centre that tested positive in the past two weeks.

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Two of those children are among 56 people who have been treated in hospital for measles in the area since the outbreak started, NBC said, quoting health officials.

Measles is one of the most contagious viruses for humans. In serious cases, infections can cause complications including pneumonia, encephalitis, dehydration and blindness.

The Texas Department of State Health Services described it as a “highly contagious viral infection, which can cause life-threatening illness to anyone who is not vaccinated”.

Early symptoms can include a fever, cough and a runny nose, developing into a red-brown rash and high temperature.

Until five weeks ago, Arturo Suarez was a professional singer, performing in the United States as he waited for his asylum claim to be processed.

Originally from Venezuela, he had entered the US through proper, legal channels.

But he is now imprisoned in a notorious jail in El Salvador, sent there by the Trump administration, despite seemingly never having faced trial or committed any crime. The White House claims he is a gang member but has not provided evidence to support this allegation.

His brother, Nelson Suarez, told Sky News he believes his brother’s only “crime” is being Venezuelan and having tattoos.

“He is not a gang member,” Nelson says, adamantly, “I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to be because of the tattoos. If you don’t have a criminal record, you haven’t committed any crime in the United States, what other reason could there be? Because you’re Venezuelan?”

Arturo, 34, was recording a music video inside a house in March when he was arrested by immigration agents.

He was first taken to a deportation centre in El Paso, Texas, and then, it appears, put on to a military flight to El Salvador.

His family have not heard from him since. Lawyers and immigrant rights groups have been unable to make contact with any of the more than 200 Venezuelan men sent to the CECOT prison, which holds members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.

Tattoo clue to Arturo Suarez’s whereabouts

Nelson learned his brother is – most likely – in CECOT only because of a photograph he spotted on a news website of a group of inmates, with their hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together.

“You can see the hummingbird tattoo on his neck,” Nelson says, pointing to the picture. He says Arturo wanted a hummingbird in memory of their late mother. Arturo has 33 tattoos in total, including a piano, poems and verses from the Bible.

It could be that one, or more, of those tattoos landed him at the centre of President Trump’s anti-immigration showpiece. Nelson shows me documents which indicate that Arturo did not have a criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia or the United States, the four countries he has lived in.

Sky News contacted the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a response to Arturo’s case but have not heard back.

In March, Donald Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act, a law from 1798 which has been invoked just three times before, in wartime.

It allows the president to detain and deport immigrants living legally in the US if they are from countries deemed “enemies” of the government. In this instance, Mr Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had “infiltrated the United States” and was “conducting irregular warfare”.

Gang symbol tattoos

Immigration officials have centred on certain tattoos being gang symbols. Immigration officers were provided with a document called the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide”, according to a court filing from the American Civil Liberties Union. The document provides a point-based system to determine if an immigrant in custody “may be validated” as a gang member.

Migrants who score six points and higher may be designated as members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to the document. Tattoos which fall under a “symbolism” category score four points and social media posts “displaying” gang symbols are two points. Tattoos considered suspicious, according to the document, include crowns, stars and the Michael Jordan Jumpman logo.

Jerce Reyes Barrios’s story

Another of the men sent to CECOT prison is 36-year-old Jerce Reyes Barrios, who fled Venezuela last year after marching in anti-government protests. He is a former footballer and football coach.

His lawyer, Linette Tobin, told Sky News that Reyes Barrios entered the US legally after waiting in Mexico for four months for an immigration appointment and then presenting himself at the border.

She says he was detained in a maximum security prison in the US while awaiting his asylum appointment. But before that appointment happened, he was flown to the El Salvador prison.

Ms Tobin says the DHS deported Reyes Barrios because they designated him a Tren De Aragua gang member based on two pieces of evidence.

The first, she says, is a tattoo of the Real Madrid football team logo surrounded by rosary beads. She has since obtained a declaration from the tattoo artist stating that Reyes Barrios just wanted an image which depicted his favourite team.

The second piece of evidence, she says, is a photograph, which she shows me, of Reyes Barrios in a hot tub with friends when he was a college student 13 years ago.

He is making a gesture which could be interpreted as “rock and roll”, but which she says has been interpreted as a gang symbol.

Distraught family in despair

Reyes Barrios has no criminal record in his home country. “I’ve never known anything like this,” Ms Tobin says.

“My client was deported to a third country and we have no way of getting in touch with him. His family are distraught and in despair, they cry a lot, not knowing what is going on with him. We want him returned to the United States to have a hearing and due process.”

Ms Tobin says she and other lawyers representing men sent to the El Salvador prison are trying to establish a UN working group on enforced disappearances to do a wellness check on them because the prison is completely “incommunicado”.

Sky News contacted the DHS for comment about Reyes Barrios’s case but did not receive a response. The DHS previously issued a statement declaring that “DHS intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang-affiliated tattoos. This man’s own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua”.

Reyes Barrios has an immigration hearing scheduled for 17 April, Ms Tobin says, which the Trump administration is trying to dismiss on the grounds that he is not in the US anymore.

In the meantime, children he used to coach football for in his hometown of Machiques in Venezuela have been holding a prayer vigil for him and calling for his release.

The secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem, visited CECOT last month and posed for photos standing in front of inmates behind bars.

“Do not come to our country illegally,” she said, “you will be removed, and you will be prosecuted.” Donald Trump had promised during his election campaign to clamp down on immigration, railing against undocumented immigrants and claiming immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

I ask Arturo Suarez’s brother, Nelson, how he felt watching Ms Noem posing in the prison, knowing that his brother might be close by.

“I feel bad,” he says, “I feel horrible, because in those images we only see criminals. With my brother, I feel it is more a political issue. They needed numbers, they said, these are the numbers, and now, let’s throw them to the lions.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s story

The Trump administration has admitted that at least one man sent to the El Salvador jail was sent by “administrative error”. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, was sent to CECOT despite a judge’s earlier ruling in 2019 that granted him legal protection to stay in the US.

The White House has alleged Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, but his lawyers argued there is no evidence to prove this.

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A federal judge has ordered Garcia must be returned to the US by Monday 7 April. In a post on X, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller referred to the judge as a “Marxist”, who “now thinks she’s president of El Salvador”.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “We suggest the judge contact President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador.”