'Playing with dynamite': CNN Money editor says Trump's trade war is sending market into a panic spiral

CNN Money editor Richard Quest on Tuesday started sounding the alarms about the problems that President Donald Trump's trade war with China is causing for global financial markets.

Even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been trading higher on Tuesday, Quest nonetheless said that traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange were deeply worried about the president's recent actions.

"The whole market, this whole place is terrified of the prospect of a trade war!" he exclaimed while pointing back at the NYSE. "Just look at the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average -- Catepillar, you've got McDonald's, you've got Boeing... these are large-cap stocks that have predicated their future growth on China."

Quest then noted that some of the tariffs placed by China on American goods would hurt these companies -- and could lead to a broader economic war if the United States and China kept ratcheting up tariffs.

"This is not picking a fight with Luxembourg," he said. "The reality is that what the president is doing, and what the administration is doing, no matter how justified they are in their complaints against China, they are now playing with dynamite. And at some point, one of these sticks of dynamite is going to explode."

Watch the video below.