US tariff hammer to miss the nail

Last Friday, China raised tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent to match the import levies slammed by President Donald Trump on its exports as the world’s two largest economies took turns putting trade barriers against each other. But Beijing said it would ignore further levies by President Donald Trump because it no longer makes economic sense for importers to buy from America, dismissing Trump’s mounting brinkmanship as a “joke” and a “numbers game”. Though the US president insists that his tariff policy is “doing really well”, the spiralling trade war notwithstanding, global markets remain jittery. Pressure is mounting on Trump as recession risk rises. “The recession risk is much, much higher now than it was a couple weeks ago,” noted Adam Hetts, global head of multi-asset at Janus Henderson.