Crude oil futures turned lower after initially rising in post-settlement trading Wednesday as President Trump unveiled a sweeping plan for reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

The front-month May contract on Nymex recently traded down 2.8% to $69.69/bbl, after posting modest gains in the regular session.

The president said the U.S. will impose a 10% across-the-board tariff on all imports, plus reciprocal levies on ~60 countries with the largest trade deficits with the U.S., including a 34% levy on goods from China, a 24% rate on Japanese goods, and 20% on products from the European Union.

A chart Trump displayed during his announcement did not detail tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but USMCA-compliant goods from Canada and Mexico, including oil, would remain exempt from the tariffs; Canada supplies ~4M bbl/day of its crude oil to the U.S.

The White House said all imports of oil, gas and refined products would be exempt from the new tariffs, a decision that was welcomed by the American Petroleum Institute, "underscoring the complexity of integrated global energy markets and the importance of America's role as a net energy exporter."

"Oil is selling off a little on the [overall] news, and it could introduce some additional trade and economic uncertainties, but I think people were worried it would be more extreme," Josh Young, chief investment officer at Bison Interests, said following Trump's tariff announcement.

Front-month Nymex crude (CL1:COM) for May delivery settled +0.7% to $71.71/bbl, front-month June Brent crude (CO1:COM) closed +0.6% to $74.95/bbl, the best settlement value for both benchmarks since February 20.

U.S. natural gas futures (NG1:COM) rebounded ahead of Thursday's weekly storage report from the EIA, which is expected to show a 25B cf injection into storage in a third consecutive weekly build, according to a WSJ survey; the May front-month contract ended +2.6% to $4.055/MMBtu.

ETFs: (NYSEARCA:USO), (BNO), (UCO), (SCO), (USL), (DBO), (DRIP), (GUSH), (USOI), (UNG), (BOIL), (KOLD), (UNL), (FCG)

Crude futures gained in regular trading, despite a surprise 6.2M-barrel build in U.S. crude stocks to 439.8M barrels in the week ended March 28, ~4% below the five-year average for the time of year, the Energy Information Administration reported; analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected crude stockpiles to fall by 700K barrels.

U.S. crude oil production was flat at 13.58M bbl/day, crude imports rose by 271K bbl/day to 6.5M bbl/day, exports fell by 728K bbl/day to 3.9M bbl/day, and refinery capacity use fell to 86% from 87% in the previous week, according to the EIA.

"Every crude oil input was a bearish number in this week's report," Mizuho analyst Robert Yawger said, as U.S. crude imports rose, exports fell, and refineries processed less crude than the week before.

"The report was bearish... but the market took it as neutral, as the crude build is driven by a sharp increase in Canadian crude imports, likely ahead of the fear of the introduction of new tariffs," UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.