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Abacus | Trump’s trade war on China: phoney or real, world will be the loser
If Trump sticks to his guns, his trade war could usher in a worldwide depression. Even if he’s just showboating (remember North Korea, anyone?), much of the damage has already been done
Reading Time:5 minutes
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As Donald Trump escalates his economic disputes with US trading partners, workers, businesspeople and investors around Asia and the wider world are looking in an unusual direction for encouragement – towards North Korea.
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Their hope is that Trump’s trade tariffs, much like his threats last year to rain “fire and fury” on the regime in Pyongyang, are nothing but a negotiating tactic.
On this view the US president (and author of The Art Of The Deal) is deliberately threatening a damaging trade war, so that he can subsequently scrap his tariffs in return for economic concessions he will be able to trumpet to his voter base in the run-up to November’s US midterm elections.
This may be wishful thinking. But for many, the alternative is too frightful to contemplate: that the US president and his advisers really do intend to open full-blown economic hostilities against China and other countries in the conviction that “trade wars are good, and easy to win”, in the words of Trump’s notorious March tweet.
WATCH: Trade war threatens China’s love for American barbecue
If this really is the case, then workers and businesses around the world will be facing nothing less than the reversal of the trend towards globalisation that has done more than anything else to drive the world’s economic growth over the past 20 years. The result could easily be global recession, or even depression.
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