Worries that a full-blown trade war will break out between Beijing and Washington continued to weigh on currencies and sent Chinese stocks hurtling lower.

That also pressured emerging market currencies, which typically suffer at times of risk aversion. The Argentine peso slipped 1.39 percent, while the Mexican peso was down 1.07 percent.

The Brazilian real continued to underperform, leading the region's currency losses with a 2.01 percent decline.

Concerns over unpredictable presidential elections in October, as well as the government's fiscal outlook have battered the Brazilian currency, the second-worst performing currency in Latin America this year behind only the Argentine peso.

A decision by a Supreme Court Justice ruling that all privatizations must be approved by Congress also weighed on the currency.

"The market does not enjoy that kind of political interference, it tends to curb dollar inflows," Mirae Asset head of operations Pablo Spyer said.

Brazil's benchmark Bovespa stock index slid 1.11 percent, reversing gains from earlier in the session.

In Argentina, the MerVal stock index closed down 8.8 percent on Wednesday, its worst daily performance since early 2014, as concerns about global trade tensions weighed on the market.

The MerVal touched its lowest level since November 2017 and has erased gains from last week, when stocks rose on MSCI's announcement that it would upgrade Argentina to its emerging markets category, from frontier markets previously.