(Reuters) – European stocks rose on Friday at the end of a volatile week that was dominated by erratic changes in tariffs by the United States and its major trading partners that fuelled concerns over the economic ravages of a trade war.
The pan-European STOXX 600 edged up 0.5% at 0719 GMT, after plummeting to a near 1-1/2-year low this week as U.S. President Donald Trump first imposed “reciprocal” tariffs and only hours later suspended some levies, causing wild swings in global equities that lost trillions of dollars in value recently.
The benchmark index is set for its third weekly decline.
Among regional indexes, Germany Spain, France, and the UK gained between 0.3% and 0.7% after registering their steepest one-day percentage gain since 2022 in the previous session.
Trump’s tariff pause led the European Union to pause its own retaliatory levies on American goods on Thursday. European Union finance ministers will brainstorm on Friday how to use that time to negotiate a deal with Washington or prepare to deal with U.S. tariffs.
Meanwhile, the trade war between the world’s top two economies escalated further this week, with both China and U.S. hiking tariffs on each other.
Among stocks, Zurich Insurance tumbled 5.4% ahead of its annual general meeting.
Stellantis shares dropped 2.2% after the carmaker’s first-quarter shipments were down 9% compared to last year.
(Reporting by Sukriti Gupta; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
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