London (CNN Business) 1. Trade war escalation: Investors are focused on one thing: President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on all Chinese exports to the United States from September 1.

The announcement shocked markets on Thursday, producing a 600-point swing for the Dow US stock futures point to more pain when Wall Street opens on Friday.

Global stocks have joined the sell-off. Japan's Nikkei declined 2.1%. The Shanghai Composite dropped 1.4%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 2.4%.

Suppliers of the Chinese tech company Huawei, which has been caught up in the trade war, were hit particularly hard. Some suppliers listed in Hong Kong suffered losses of up to 8%.

In Europe , Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 both dropped 2.2% at the open. London's FTSE 100 was down 1.5%. The Swiss franc, a traditional safe haven, strengthened 0.4% against the US dollar.

Crude oil began to recoup some of the heavy losses incurred after the salvo from Trump. US oil futures rose 2%, while Brent crude, the global benchmark, increased 2.5%.

The threat of new tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese products came just after US trade representatives returned from a round of negotiations in Shanghai. While both sides agreed those talks were "constructive," they announced no tangible progress.

Global investors are running scared. "There hasn't been much data to distract from trade war overnight," Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes wrote in a research note.

2. US jobs report: The latest jobs numbers out the United States may provide some relief later.

The American job market may be cooling off, but it probably eked out another respectable month of job growth in July after a surprisingly strong June.

Economists polled by Refinitiv estimate the economy added 164,000 jobs last month, with the unemployment rate remaining steady at 3.7%.

That would represent a slowdown from the 192,000-job average over the past year, but it would be more than enough to absorb everyone who enters the labor force in a typical month.

3. More earnings: Oil giants Chevron CVX Exxon Mobil XOM Oil giantsandwill report their latest earnings before the opening bell.

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