ISTANBUL 

US stocks opened the week significantly down with the S&P 500 entering bear territory as the global trade war continues to wreak havoc on the markets.

Last Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced the imposition of sweeping reciprocal tariffs on over 180 countries, ranging from 10% to 50%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,145.63 points, or 2.99%, to 37,169.23 as of 10.00 am EDT (1400GMT).

The S&P 500 was down 107.51 points, or 2.13%, to 4,958.76, entering bear market territory. The Nasdaq composite lost 291.39 points, or 2.04%, to 15,323.27.

Last week, US stock markets lost around $6 trillion, while nearly $10 trillion has been wiped from US markets since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration and the Nasdaq composite had already entered bear market territory.

Trump on Sunday described tariffs as "medicine” for addressing the country’s trade deficit with many countries.

"I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something," Trump told reporters on Air Force One, saying he was not intentionally trying to engineer a market selloff with his policies.

After the tariff announcements, companies with global supply chains and those that are highly dependent on imports plus tech companies saw a sharp decline in shares.

As the decline in the shares of companies called the “Magnificent Seven” continued, Amazon's shares fell over 2%, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta's shares fell over 3%, Apple and Nvidia's shares fell over 5%, and Tesla's shares fell over8 %.

The VIX volatility index, referred to as the "fear index," jumped to 50.76.