BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares sank Friday after U.S. stocks gave up much of their historic gains from the day before.

The deepening worries over President Donald Trump’ s trade war initially helped pull Japan’s Nikkei 225 share index down 5.6%.

By mid-morning in Tokyo, it was down 4.7% at 32,969.95.

The yen surged against the U.S. dollar, which also lost value against the euro.

One dollar bought 143.48 Japanese yen, down from about 146 yen a day earlier. The euro rose to $1.1305 from $1.1195.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.6% to 2,400.34, while in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 2.1% to 7,552.10.

Investors are viewing Trump’s decision to view a 90 day delay on higher tariffs for most countries as a ploy, not a pivot, Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

“That’s the market hitting the brakes, hard. The sugar high from Trump’s tariff pause is fading fast, and Asia’s about to feel the comedown. The champagne’s flat, the party’s over, and the tape is twitching,” he wrote.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 tumbled 3.5%, slicing into Wednesday’s surge of 9.5% following Trump’s decision to pause many of his tariffs worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,014 points, or 2.5%, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 4.3%.

But China announced more countermeasures against the United States and losses for U.S. stocks accelerated after the White House clarified that the United States will tax Chinese imports at 145%, not the 125% rate that Trump had written about in his posting on Truth Social Wednesday, once other previously announced tariffs were included. The drop for the S&P 500 exceeded 6% at one point.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 188.85 points Thursday to 5,268.05. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,014.79 to 39,593.66, and the Nasdaq composite sank 737.66 to 16,387.31.

“Trump blinks,” UBS strategist Bhanu Baweja wrote in a report about the president’s decision on tariffs, “but the damage isn’t all undone.”

China, meanwhile, has been seeking to join forces with other countries in apparent hopes of forming a united front against Trump. The world’s second-largest economy is also ramping up its own countermeasures to Trump’s tariffs.

The stock price of Warner Bros. Discovery, the company behind “A Minecraft Movie,” dropped 12.5% for one of Wall Street’s sharpest losses after China said Thursday it will “appropriately reduce the number of imported U.S. films.” The Walt Disney Co.’s stock sank 6.8%

A spokesperson for the China Film Administration said it is “inevitable” that Chinese audiences would find American films less palatable given the “wrong move by the U.S. to wantonly implement tariffs on China.”

That was after Trump and his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sent a clear message to other countries Wednesday after announcing their pause on tariffs for most countries: “Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded.”

The European Union said Thursday it will put its trade retaliation measures on hold for 90 days and leave room for a negotiated solution.

Thursday’s swings also hit the bond market, which has historically played the role of enforcer against politicians and economic policies it deemed imprudent. It helped topple the United Kingdom’s Liz Truss in 2022, for example, whose 49 days made her Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister.

Earlier this week, big jumps for U.S. Treasury yields had rattled the market, so much that Trump said Wednesday he had been watching how investors were “getting a little queasy.”

Several reasons could have been behind the sharp, sudden rise in yields. Hedge funds may have sold Treasurys in order to raise cash, and investors outside the United States may be dumping their U.S. government bonds because of the trade war. Regardless of the reasons behind it, higher Treasury yields crank up pressure on the stock market and push rates higher for mortgages and other loans for U.S. households and businesses.

The 10-year Treasury yield had calmed following Trump’s U-turn on tariffs, dropping all the way back to 4.30% shortly after the release of a better-than-expected report on inflation Thursday morning. That’s after it had shot up to nearly 4.50% Wednesday morning from just 4.01% at the end of last week.

As Thursday progressed, though, the 10-year Treasury yield climbed once again and reached 4.40%. It was trading at 4.39% early Friday.

In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 37 cents to $59.70 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 30 cents to $63.03 per barrel.

AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor announced his run for Ireland’s presidency on Thursday, pushing for an anti-immigration stance just days after meeting with United States President Donald Trump at the White House.

“Ireland, the choice is yours and it is an easy one,” McGregor said on X, formerly Twitter. “Vote for me as your president and we will SAVE IRELAND TOGETHER!”

In a separate post, the former UFC star expressed his opposition to the European Union Migration Pact, a set of rules to evenly distribute migration, asylum, border management and integration claims more evenly across the bloc.

“Any other Presidential candidate they attempt to put forward will be of no resistance to them. I will!” McGregor wrote.

McGregor, who garnered a massive following among conservative men in the U.S., made his announcement the same week he met with Trump at the White House, where he told the president his “work ethic is inspiring.”

At the White House, McGregor also made anti-immigration comments, stating, “Ireland is at the cusp of potentially losing its Irishness.”

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin slammed McGregor’s visit to the White House in a social media post Monday, stating “Conor McGregor’s remarks are wrong, and do not reflect the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland.”

McGregor, a prominent figure in the “manosphere,” has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault. He is currently facing a lawsuit by a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her in the bathroom at the Kaseya Center during the 2023 NBA finals in Miami. Last year, a Dublin jury found McGregor liable for sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel penthouse in 2018.

Rachel Morrogh, the chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, told the Guardian that McGregor’s visit to the White House was “sinister,” calling it “an attempt to rebuild the very damaged reputation of Conor McGregor.”

“I think what has really shocked us is that the office of the president of the United States, which is so respected and so revered, is being used to launder Conor McGregor’s reputation,” Morrogh said.

The wave of Israeli strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday was the culmination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to get out of the ceasefire with Hamas that he agreed to in January.

Since the start of the war, Netanyahu has faced dueling, possibly incompatible pressures: Families of the hostages want him to cut a deal with Hamas to free them, while his far-right coalition partners want to continue the war with the aim of annihilating the militant group.

On Tuesday, he appeared to cast his lot with the latter — and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has backed Netanyahu’s decision to unilaterally walk away from the ceasefire it took credit for brokering.

Both Israel and the United States blame the renewed hostilities on Hamas’ refusal to release more hostages before negotiations on ending the war proceed — which was not part of the ceasefire agreement. Israel has accused Hamas of preparing for new attacks, without providing evidence. The militant group has denied those allegations.

Hamas — which has yet to respond militarily to the Israeli strikes — has spent weeks calling for serious talks on the ceasefire agreement’s second phase, which calls for the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire.

Those talks were supposed to begin in early February. Now they may never happen.

The agreement reached in January, under pressure from the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump one, called for a phased ceasefire aimed at freeing all the hostages abducted in Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attack and ending the war it caused.

Under the first phase, which ran from Jan. 19 to March 1, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in return for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants serving life sentences for deadly attacks. Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to what remained of their homes, and there was a surge of humanitarian aid.

Each side accused the other of violations, and Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians the military accused of engaging in militant activities or entering no-go zones. But the truce held.

Still, the second phase was always seen as far more difficult.

Through months of negotiations, Netanyahu had repeatedly cast doubt on it, insisting Israel was committed to returning all the hostages and destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities — two war goals that many believe are irreconcilable.

In a TV interview last June, Netanyahu cast doubt on the possibility of a lasting ceasefire before Hamas is destroyed. “We are committed to continuing the war after a pause, in order to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas. I’m not willing to give up on that,” he said.

On Jan. 18, the eve of the ceasefire, he said “we reserve the right to return to war if necessary with the backing of the United States.”

Agreeing to a permanent ceasefire would almost certainly plunge Netanyahu into a political crisis that could end his nearly uninterrupted 15-year rule.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had threatened to leave the coalition if Netanyahu progressed to Phase 2 instead of restarting the offensive. Opposition parties have promised to support him in any agreement that brings back hostages, but his coalition would still be severely weakened, making early elections likely.

By resuming the fighting, Netanyahu ensured Smotrich’s continued support. After the strikes, the Israeli leader regained another far-right partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose party had bolted in January over the ceasefire but returned to the coalition Tuesday.

Beyond the political jockeying, Netanyahu’s stated goal of annihilating Hamas would have almost certainly eluded him had he stuck with the ceasefire agreement.

Hamas survived 15 months of Israeli bombardment and ground operations that killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and destroyed much of Gaza. When the truce took hold, the militant group immediately reasserted its rule.

There’s no agreement on who should govern Gaza after the war, and even if the Western-backed Palestinian Authority were granted nominal control, Hamas would have strong influence on the ground and could rebuild its military capabilities.

For many Israelis, especially Netanyahu’s hawkish base and far-right allies, that would look like defeat. It would add to the criticism he already faces over security failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251.

After the first phase ended, Netanyahu said Israel had agreed to what he described as a new U.S. proposal in which Hamas would release half the remaining hostages in return for a seven-week extension of the truce and a vague promise to launch negotiations over a lasting ceasefire.

Hamas refused, pointing out that the new proposal was different from the one they had agreed to in January and again called for the immediate launch of talks on Phase 2.

It even offered to return an America-Israeli and the bodies of four other hostages to get the talks back on track, an offer dismissed as “psychological warfare” by Israel. Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas was claiming flexibility in public while making “entirely impractical” demands.

In an attempt to impose the new arrangement on Hamas, Israel halted the import of all food, fuel and other humanitarian aid to Gaza. It later cut off electricity, affecting a vital desalination plant. Israel also said it would not withdraw from a strategic corridor on Gaza’s border with Egypt, as stipulated in the agreement.

In recent days, Israel stepped up strikes across Gaza, targeting people it said were planting explosives or engaging in other militant activities. On Tuesday, at around 2 a.m., it launched one of the deadliest waves of strikes since the start of the war.

Trump took credit for brokering the ceasefire in January, but since then has appeared to sour on it. He has warned that “all hell” will break loose if Hamas does not immediately release the hostages, while saying that’s a decision for Israel to make.

Trump has also proposed that Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians be permanently relocated so the U.S. can take ownership of Gaza and develop it as a tourist destination. Netanyahu has embraced the plan, which has been universally condemned by Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights experts, who say it would violate international law.

The White House said it was consulted ahead of Tuesday’s strikes and supported Israel’s decision.

CAIRO (AP) — Arab leaders meeting in Cairo on Tuesday are set to endorse a counterproposal to U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the Gaza Strip to be depopulated and transformed into a beach destination, even as the continuation of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire is uncertain.

The summit hosted by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi included the emir of Qatar, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia — countries whose support is crucial for any postwar plan. United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres also attended.

Israel has embraced what it says is an alternative U.S. proposal for the ceasefire itself and the release of hostages taken in Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war. It has blocked the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza to try to get Hamas to accept the new proposal and has warned of additional consequences, raising fears of a return to fighting.

The suspension of aid drew widespread criticism, with human rights groups saying that it violated Israel’s obligations as an occupying power under international law.

The new plan would require Hamas to release half its remaining hostages — the militant group’s main bargaining chip — in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Israel made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners — a key component of the first phase.

Egypt published a 112-page draft of the $53 billion plan for rebuilding Gaza by 2030 without removing its population. The first phase calls for starting the removal of unexploded ordnance and clearing the more than 50 million tons of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment and military offensives.

Hundreds of thousands of temporary housing units would be set up where Gaza’s population could live while reconstruction takes place. The rubble would be recycled, and some of it would be used as infill to create expanded lands on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.

In the following years, the plan envisages completely reshaping the strip, building “sustainable, green and walkable” housing and urban areas, with renewable energy. It renovates agricultural lands and creates industrial zones and large park areas.

It also calls for the opening of an airport, a fishing port and a commercial port. The Oslo peace accords in the 1990s called for the opening of an airport and a commercial port in Gaza, but the projects withered as the peace process collapsed.

Under the plan, Hamas would cede power to an interim administration of political independents until a reformed Palestinian Authority can assume control.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Western-backed authority and an opponent of Hamas, was attending the summit.

Israel has ruled out any role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and, along with the United States, has demanded Hamas’ disarmament. Hamas, which doesn’t accept Israel’s existence, has said it’s willing to cede power in Gaza to other Palestinians, but won’t give up its arms until there is a Palestinian state.

An early draft of the statement endorsing the plan called for a “permanent and just solution” for the Palestinian cause, and for the U.N. Security Council to deploy international peacekeepers in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The mention of peacekeepers was dropped from a later draft.

Israel has vowed to maintain open-ended security control over both territories, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast war and which Palestinians want for their future state. Israel’s government and most of its political class are opposed to Palestinian statehood.

Trump shocked the region last month when he suggested that Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians be resettled in other countries. He said that the United States would take ownership of the territory and redevelop it into a Middle Eastern “Riviera.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embraced the proposal, which was roundly rejected by Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights experts, who said it would likely violate international law.

Trump has suggested that Egypt and Jordan, two close American allies, could take in large numbers of Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Both countries have adamantly rejected any such plan.

Meeting with Trump at the White House last month, King Abdullah II of Jordan offered to take in around 2,000 children for medical treatment. The first batch of around 30 children left Gaza for Jordan on Tuesday, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The children are being accompanied by up to two family members.

Jordan said that the children are amputees and will return to Gaza when their treatment is complete. The kingdom has also set up field hospitals in Gaza and delivered aid by air and land.

The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage. Hamas-led militants are still holding 59 hostages, 35 of whom are believed to be dead.

Most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements. Israel has rescued eight living hostages and recovered the remains of dozens more.

Israel’s 15-month offensive killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It doesn’t say how many were fighters, but the ministry says women and children made up more than half the dead. Israel says it killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The offensive destroyed large areas of Gaza, including much of its health system and other infrastructure. At its height, the war displaced abou 90% of the population, mostly within the territory, where hundreds of thousands packed into squalid tent camps and schools repurposed as shelters.

Jahjouh reported from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hamas will release three Israelis, including two women and an 80-year-old man, as well as five Thai nationals during the next hostage release, slated for Thursday, officials from Israel and Hamas said as a tenuous ceasefire between the sides moves ahead.

The officials named the Israeli women as Arbel Yehoud, 29, Agam Berger, 19, and the man as Gadi Moses, 80. The officials, who spoke on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the hostages’ families had approved the publication of their names.

The identities of the Thai nationals were not immediately known. A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack that set off the war in Gaza.

The expected release will keep up the momentum of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and the militant Hamas group that began earlier this month and which paused the 15-monthlong war in Gaza. As part of the deal, Hamas is releasing hostages in phases in exchange for freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The deal had been negotiated for months under the Biden administration but was finally sealed after President Donald Trump threatened there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages weren’t returned.

Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Israel on Wednesday and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads to Washington next week to meet Trump — the first foreign leader to meet the U.S. president in his second term in office.

Thursday’s release wasn’t originally scheduled but came as a result of a standoff between Israel and Hamas over the identities of the hostages released over the weekend.

Israel had demanded that Yehoud, a civilian, be part of that group and when she wasn’t freed, Israel held up the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians looking to return to what is left of their homes in the war-battered north of Gaza.

International mediation efforts brought about the additional release on Thursday and cleared the way for Palestinians to stream north. Another release is slated for Saturday, which Netanyahu’s office said would free male hostages. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners are set to be freed both Thursday and Saturday.

The pause in fighting has exposed the vastness of the destruction caused to the urban landscape in Gaza, prompting a suggestion from Trump over the weekend that neighboring Jordan and Egypt take in displaced Palestinians.

Earlier Wednesday, Egypt, an important U.S. ally, rejected Trump’s suggestion, defying a U.S. president who has shown little patience for dissent from international partners.

Over the weekend, Trump told reporters that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from war-torn Gaza, an idea that has long been rejected by those countries and the Palestinians themselves because they say it would undermine the notion of Palestinian statehood and foment instability in their states.

Trump on Saturday said he would urge Egypt and Jordan to accept people from Gaza so that “we just clean out that whole thing,” calling the territory “a demolition site.”

Trump said he would urge the leaders of both countries, which are key allies to the U.S. in the Middle East and major recipients of American aid in the region, to accept the idea, saying the resettlement could be temporary or long term.

It is not clear if Trump could force Egypt or Jordan to agree, but he has in his first days in office and on the campaign threatened hefty tariffs against American allies to get his way.

In his first public comments since Trump floated the suggestion Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi called the idea “an injustice” which Egypt would not be party to.

In a news conference in Cairo with the visiting Kenyan president, el-Sissi said the transfer of Palestinians “can’t ever be tolerated or allowed.”

“The solution to this issue is the two-state solution. It is the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said. “The solution is not to remove the Palestinian people from their place.”

He said his government would work with the Trump administration to achieve peace “that is based on the two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians.

The war, set off by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count. The fighting has obliterated vast areas of Gaza, displacing some 90% of its 2.3 million population, often multiple times.

During its attack, Hamas took 250 people hostage and killed roughly 1,200.

The theme of displacement has been recurrent in Palestinian history and the idea of staying steadfast on one’s land is an integral element of the Palestinian identity. Palestinians fear that if they leave their land, they may never be allowed to return.

Those fears have been compounded by far-right members of Israel’s government who support rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005. Netanyahu says that idea is unrealistic.

Egypt and Jordan have each made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.

Egypt and Jordan receive billions of dollars in American aid each year. Military assistance to Egypt and Israel was exempted from a U.S. funding freeze to global aid programs.

Magdy reported from Cairo.