The U.S. economy will be hit many times harder than the rest of the world by an escalating global trade war, according the chief executive officer of A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S.
Soren Skou, who runs the world’s biggest shipping company from Copenhagen, said the fallout of the current protectionist wave “could easily end up being bigger in the U.S.” Tariffs could slow global annual trade growth by 0.1 to 0.3 percent, though for the U.S. the effect could be “perhaps 3 or 4 percent,” he said at a presentation at Maersk’s headquarters on Friday. “And that would definitely not be good.”
The company transports about 20 percent of the world’s seaborne consumer goods, putting it in a unique position to gauge the fallout of tariffs on trade flows. Maersk has in the past broken with its culture of steering clear of any political debate to criticize the trade policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The first thing the American importers would do if tariffs are put on Chinese consumer goods would be to buy in Vietnam, in Indonesia or elsewhere in Asia,” Skou said. “Big U.S. consumer brands like Nike produce in all of Asia, not just in one country, so there will be a substitution effect.
“The other factor is that there’s a lot of stuff that’s now imported into the U.S. that just isn’t produced anywhere within the U.S.,” Skou said. “You can’t get Nike sneakers or iPhones that are produced in the U.S. So it will end up being pushed on to the consumer.”
