The departure of economic adviser Gary Cohn sparked renewed worries Trump may go ahead with his proposed import tariffs on steel and aluminium.
SINGAPORE: Most Southeast Asian stock markets fell on Tuesday as a rout in Chinese shares ahead of a U.S. deadline for further tariffs on exports from the world's second-largest economy soured risk sentiment across the region.
Asia-Pacific MSCI index ex-Japan dropped over 1 percent in early trade.
Indonesian shares fell nearly 2 percent to a more than one-year low, extending losses for a second day, on broad-based selling. Telekomunikasi Indonesia fell 1.3 percent and Perusahaan Gas Negara's slid nearly 9.5 percent, and were the biggest drags on the benchmark.
An index of the country's 45 most liquid stocks was down 1.5 percent.
On July 6, the United States is expected to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of goods from China, the epicentre of a heated trade dispute between Washington and major economies that has convulsed financial markets.
"I think we are going to see markets consolidate because that's (U.S. tariffs) the great unknown," said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia pacific at Oanda.
A lot of position-driven trading (depending on the impact of tariffs) can be expected, he added.
Singapore stocks fell 0.5 percent, dragged down by financials. The city-state's top lenders, DBS Group Holdings and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, slipped 0.9 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
Malaysian stocks were down 0.4 percent, weighed by utilities and telecom stocks. Tenaga Nasional, down 1.8 percent, was the biggest drag while Sime Darby slipped about 5 percent.
Philippine shares were up 0.4 percent led by industrials and financials ahead of inflation data due this week. The index is on track for a third straight session of gains.
SM Investments Corp added 1.6 percent while BDO Unibank gained 1.4 percent.
Meanwhile, real estate stocks and consumer staples dragged the Vietnam index lower. - Reuters
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