The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that North American stocks finished lower on Thursday, with Nasdaq confirming it has been in a correction since December, weighed down by market jitters over the current uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that goods from Canada and Mexico covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) will be exempted for a month from the 25-per-cent tariffs imposed earlier this week. The development comes a day after Mr. Trump temporarily exempted automotive goods from the tariffs. "The fog of confusion is getting thicker by the moment, unfortunately," said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at SiebertNXT in New York. "We are getting a lot of just different conflicting information: tariffs are on, tariffs are off, some tariffs are off and so forth." Carmaker General Motors lost 2.6 per cent while its counterpart Ford Motor also finished 0.4 per cent lower. The Nasdaq dropped 10.4 per cent from its Dec. 16 closing level, confirming a correction. The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended down 1.2 per cent at 24,584.04, giving back nearly all of the previous day's rally.