04. September 2019 -IAM, News
Hugues Chevalier, Economist
Since the start of the Trump administration, the US external trade policy has been to set up an exacerbated protectionism towards China (and towards the other main trade partners). Since 2018, seven new taxes / duties have been implemented on Chinese imports. President Trump, just before the G7 meeting, has announced two new taxes. The first is to tax at 30% 250 billions of dollars of imports, instead of 25%, as from the 1st of October, while the second one is to increase the rate from 10% to 15% for the 300 billions of remaining imports from China. As a consequence of this escalation, the world GDP growth could be amputated by 0.4 point, while the Chinese GDP could be reduced by 1.2 point and the American one by 0.7 point. The impact could be huge, including for Switzerland and for the Swiss corporate sector.