Asian markets swung Wednesday amid trade war worries after Donald Trump said he would not push back next week's tariff deadline, with Tokyo taking a hit from threats to ramp up Japanese levies.

Sentiment was also mixed after the US president's signature budget bill scraped through the Senate, with optimism over the extension of deep tax cuts offset by warnings that it could add around $3 trillion to the country's already ballooning national debt.

With a week to go before Trump's 90-day pause on so-called reciprocal tariffs ends, hardly any governments have struck deals to avert the taxes, though White House officials have claimed several are in the pipeline.

And while the White House had set July 9 as the cut-off date for leaders to finalise pacts, investors largely expect that to be pushed back or countries given extra time.

However, the president said Tuesday he was "not thinking about the pause" and again warned he would end negotiations or ramp up some duties, adding that he will be "writing letters to a lot of countries".

Among those in his sights was Japan, which he slammed at the start of the week over US rice and auto exports to the........

© International Business Times