ZCZC
BCN-09
US-TRADE-POLICY
U.S. go-it-alone trade policy a major risk to global economy
BEIJING, May 27, 2019 (BSS/Xinhua) – A responsible player, an anchor of
stability and a defender of global order…Shrugging off all the expectations
for an economic superpower, the United States, with its go-it-alone trade
policy, is becoming a major risk to the global economy.
Ever since the U.S. administration vowed to “make America great again,” it
has become increasingly confrontational in its trade agenda, raising tariffs
and challenging existing global trading systems.
From threats of steel tariffs on Canada and Mexico to auto tariffs on
Europe, the United States is stirring up trade disputes everywhere.
As it has been repeatedly proved, either by economics logic or policy
outcomes, launching trade wars is of no avail to the stated goal of narrowing
U.S. trade deficit.
Rather, U.S. businesses and households have been worried about the rising
prices of production and consumer goods, and jobs of labor-intensive
industries did not return to the U.S. as policymakers have wished.
The New York Federal Reserve estimates that the latest round of tariff
hikes on Chinese goods will cost the typical U.S. household 831 U.S. dollars
a year.
The prosperity of the global economy over the past decades has been built
on the free flow of trade and investment. Disrupting the flow of trade
between the world’s two largest economies will put global growth at risk.
But the U.S. administration refused to see this. In May, the United States
unilaterally escalated trade tensions with China, rattling stock markets
across the world and leaving countries in the global supply chain to gauge
the negative impacts on economic growth.
It is common sense that trade frictions between the United States and
China, whose combined contributions accounted for more than half of the
global economic growth in 2018, will be amplified through the stretching
supply chains, and eventually, the global economy will bear the cost.
Over the past decades, China, with its cheap labor and massive market, has
gradually grown into the global manufacturing hub. The country is now the
largest trade partner of more than 120 countries and regions.
MORE/HR/0948
ZCZC
BCN-10
US-TRADE-POLICY 2 LAST BEIJING
In 2018, trade between China and the United States reached 633.5 billion
U.S. dollars.
Any tinkering with trade policies in a single linkage will pass along the
inter-related supply chain and incur collateral damages in unpredictable
ways.
According to a survey by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China,
over one-third of the 585 companies doing businesses in the country found
themselves negatively affected by tariff hikes started by the United States.
A UN report released Wednesday lowered the global growth forecast for 2019
and 2020 to 2.7 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, citing trade disputes
as major concerns.
The increasingly self-centered and short-sighted policies of the United
States is putting its future and the global economic prospect at stake,
driving the world into an “economic cold war” where nobody wins.
Even if the world economy can hold up through the rounds of trade
frictions, the uncertainties the tensions cause will be long-lasting.
The United States is the world’s biggest economy; it should act like one.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/0950