United States President Donald Trump's surprise decision to escalate the ongoing trade war with tariffs on another US$300 billion (S$413 billion) of Chinese goods sent stock markets from Asia to Europe into a tailspin, and raised significantly the odds of a more severe downturn for the region.

Asian markets, which have yet to recover from Thursday's sell-off due to the US central bank shunning a lengthy easing cycle, lost further ground yesterday with Japan and Hong Kong tumbling more than 2 per cent, and Taiwan falling 1.7 per cent. Shanghai and Shenzhen each shed more than 1.4 per cent, while the Straits Times Index ended down 0.93 per cent.