U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he had "no deadline" for a trade deal with China, and could wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2020 to sign an agreement.
"There is justifiable cause to correlate Trump's bluster to Beijing's insistence that tariff rollback is a pre-condition to any deal," Mizuho Bank said in a note to clients.
"In which case, it seems Trump's priority is to not appear weak in the run-up to the elections."
The imminent tariffs on China, set to kick in on December 15, will only add to market woes as it is besieged by the repercussions of multiple U.S. tariffs on Argentina, Brazil and France, all announced earlier this week.
Tariff-sensitive Singapore stocks fell to their lowest in six weeks, dented by losses in consumer and banking sectors.
Lender United Overseas Bank fell over 1%, while agribusiness company Wilmar International lost over 2%.
The Philippine index fell, as losses in real estate stocks weighed on the index, with SM Prime Holdings and Ayala Land slipping 1.9% and 2.1%, respectively.
Malaysian shares fell to their lowest in nearly eight weeks, after data showed that the country's exports dropped for the third straight month in October, though the pace of decline was slower than expected.
The index was dragged lower by weakness in telecom and financial sectors.
Bucking the trend, Vietnam stocks edged a tick higher, helped by gains in financials.
Real estate developer Vingroup was up 0.5%, while Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam rose 1.6%.
(Reporting by Soumyajit Saha in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
By Soumyajit Saha
