Asia had eked out a 8-month high overnight but Europe and Wall Street futures were both left flat after Donald Trump welcomed the World Trade Organisation's finding that Europe's subsides to planemaker Airbus had hurt the United States.
The US "will now put tariffs on $11 Billion of EU products!" Trump tweeted. "The EU has taken advantage of the US on trade for many years. It will soon stop!"
Airbus' shares dropped as much as 2.5 percent. Many of its key suppliers lost between 0.7 percent and 1.2 percent, though most of Europe's big bourses managed to keep their levels broadly flat.
Aberdeen Standard Investment's head of global multi-asset strategy Andrew Milligan said: "Signals like this just remind people that the strategic rivalry between the US and other countries is serious and is not going to go away."
The day's other focus was set to be the International Monetary Fund's half-yearly forecasts, which are likely to reinforce the message that trade spats are contributing to slowing the global economy.
The Fund is expected to make quite a sizable cut to its growth number and Germany's 10-year bond yield stayed just below zero percent on bets interest rates are set to stay extremely low globally.
In the FX market, sterling nudged higher as UK Prime Minister Theresa May met Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Emmanuel Macron to ask for another Brexit delay.
The Australian and Canadian dollars, Norwegian crown and Russian rouble also rose as a surge in oil prices to five-month highs lifted most other commodity-linked currencies.
Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil firm also set the commodity market frothing on reports it had received more than $100 billion (£76.5 billion) of orders for its debut international bond, which was only supposed to raise $10 billion.
Brent, the global oil benchmark, rose as high as $71.34 a barrel, the highest since November, though by 1230 GMT it had eased back to $71.00. US WTI crude was at $64.28, having earlier been at $64.77.
Oil prices - up more than 40 percent this year - have jumped on expectations that global supplies will tighten due to fighting in Libya, OPEC-led output cuts and US sanctions against Iran and Venezuela.
"Concerns over the potential squeezing of supply in Libya following the escalation of violence there are adding fresh impetus," analysts at JBC Energy wrote.