he Institute for Supply Management said early in the day that its index of national factory activity dropped to 49.1, compared with a reading of 51.1 estimated by analysts polled by Reuters. "If anything the U.S. manufacturing data signals that the new tariffs couldn't come at a worse time. It's bad news on top of bad news. That's why investors are so focused on negotiations" said Alec Young, managing director of global markets research at FTSE Russell based in New York.

And Euro Pacific Capital CEO, Peter Schiff agrees.

"This is the weakest manufacturing economy we've had in 10 years, basically since the tail-end of the Great Recession. So, for all the talk from Donald Trump about how great this economy is, how it's the greatest economy ever, it's the weakest manufacturing economy since the Great Recession. It's weaker than it was pretty much at any point during the Obama presidency. And according to Trump, Obama was a disaster for the economy; he was a disaster for manufacturing. Well, maybe he was right, but Trump has proved to be an even bigger disaster than Obama." –Peter Schiff, via Schiff Gold