There's also growing fears that any shakeout in stocks from here could well compound the consumer confidence retreat by sapping the 'wealth effect' in richer households who dominate retail spending aggregates.
The concern is significant enough to shift the dial on Treasuries, too.
Ten-year Treasury yields have plunged to their lowest for the year at 4.33%, clocking losses of 20 basis points in less than two weeks. Two-year yields plumbed as low as 4.11% to their lowest since December 11.
Even Fed futures have sat up and taken notice - with another rate cut now fully priced again before July and more than two full cuts in price for the whole year.
In that environment, the dollar has held remarkably steady so far - caught between the domestic economic stumble and yield moves and the pressure of upcoming tariff rises. Mexico's peso, Canada's dollar and China's yuan were marginally weaker.
But the wider market risk environment is fraying at the edges.
Bitcoin plunged back below $90,000 for the first time in a month to hit its lowest since November, shortly after Trump's election was supposed to usher in some new era for the crypto world.
Elsewhere, the focus continued to be on Europe's stock outperformance, with cheaper valuations there, repatriation of European money from Wall Street, this week's German election results and hopes for euro-wide fiscal boosts all playing a part.
Despite losses on Wall Street and in China over the past 24 hours, the pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.3% on Tuesday.
Fears that a messy U.S.-Kremlin brokered deal to end the Ukraine war without rolling back Russia's three-year old invasion of the eastern part of the country have sent shockwaves across Europe and defence spending is now a huge priority.
The European aerospace and defence index jumped again on Tuesday, adding 1.3% as traders pointed to reports that Germany was discussing 200 billion euros for an emergency defence fund.
