On Thursday, Asia-Pacific markets largely trended downwards following a decrease on Wall Street, driven by escalating geopolitical tensions and remarks from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The shares of U.S. defense companies took a hit after Trump declared that he would not allow these firms to distribute dividends or engage in stock buybacks until they addressed his issues with the industry, such as executive compensation and production inefficiencies.

Oil prices also saw a decline overnight after Trump announced that Venezuela’s interim government would deliver up to 50 million barrels of crude oil to the U.S., sparking worries about a potential rise in global supply.

Brent crude futures dipped by 0.51% to settle at $60.39 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude increased by 0.61% to reach $56.33 a barrel, based on data from 7:30 a.m. Singapore time (which corresponds to 6:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday).

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 1.63%, weighed down by basic materials and technology stocks. Among the biggest decliners were SoftBank, which plunged 7.59%, and Tokyo Electron, which provides essential chipmaking equipment to foundries that manufacture Nvidia’s chips, was 4.01% lower. The broader Topix index retreated 0.77%.

South Korea’s Kospi settled slightly above the flatline at 4,552.37, while the small-cap Kosdaq retreated 0.35%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.29% higher at 8,720.8. Shares of BlueScope Steel fell 1.57% after the company rejected a $9 billion takeover bid from U.S.-based Steel Dynamics and Australian conglomerate SGH, which also saw its stock drop 1.92%.

On Thursday afternoon, BlueScope’s biggest investor, AustralianSuper, increased its voting power in the steel company to 13.52%, from 12.5%, according to a filing after the bell.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declined 1.59%, led lower by losses in basic materials and technology stocks. Lenovo Group fell 3.44%, Kuaishou Technology lost 2.85%, and Baidu traded 2.76% lower. The mainland’s CSI 300 fell 1.04%.

Shares of Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC, better known as Zhipu, rose as much as 15% on their Hong Kong debut, following a $558 million initial public offering that made it the first of China’s “AI tigers” to go public.

India’s Nifty 50 fell 0.83%, while the BSE Sensex index was 0.63% lower.

U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asian hours, after the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped a three-day winning streak.

Overnight, the broad market index shed about 0.3% while the Dow fell 466 points, or roughly 0.9%.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 0.2%, aided by a 2.4% jump in Google parent Alphabet that led the company’s market cap to surpass Apple’s for the first time since 2019.

— CNBC’s Pia Singh and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.