In a dour end to what’s been a red-washed Week 11, early morning ASX 200 futures are pointing to a 0.2% decline – to around 7,734 points today – after Trump’s trade war found a fiery new battleground: Global alcohol sales.

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Trump overnight threatened to whack 200% tariffs on alcohol imports from the EU after the 27-state union levied its own 50% tariffs on American whiskeys.

The back and forth hit the S&P 500 hard; it closed at its lowest since September.

The top U.S. index has now entered a correction, which Bloomberg reported is the seventh-fastest correction since 1929. (Three of the seven have been under Trump.)

Trump won’t kowtow: He today said the tariffs inked in for April 2 are full steam ahead.

Back home, Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) has agreed to buy 90% of the output from two solar and battery projects in central Queensland now being built by Edify Energy; a move in line with its pledge to run on clean energy by 2030.

Smallcap Renergen (ASX:RLT) will be one to watch after it hit a “long-awaited” milestone: It’s filled helium containers and is now selling those to customers.

Matsa Resources (ASX:MAT) will also be one discussed on HotCopper forums today after the gold miner fired up its drills at Fortitude North Lake Carey again. Both continued continuity tests and an extension hunt are on the cards.

Cyclopharm (ASX:CYC) has upgraded its U.S. Veterans Administration deal to a five-year pledge.

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Looking at forex, the Aussie dollar is buying 62.8 US cents.

To commodities, which are in the greenback,

Iron Ore has hiked 1.5% to $102.20 a tonne in Singapore,

Brent Crude is trading at $70.04,

Gold surged over its next milestone to more than $3,010 per ounce, and,

US natgas futures are at $4.03 per gigajoule.

That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Update.