What they say
A huge portion of US-branded products are manufactured and sold in China and so are not counted in trade volume. US companies have benefited and earned their profits. On the other hand, the US market is limited for Chinese companies and investors. It won’t be a surprise to hear that Chinese companies’ investment plans have been shut down by the US government. In terms of investment, China and the US are in an unbalanced situation. The US will only achieve its “rebalanced” trade relationship if US markets open more to China.
Zhang Monan, director of the Institute of International Trade at Beijing-based Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation
Politics prevented the US administration from seeing the trend of the global economy and made the US administration think it can solve structural problems by adopting an aggressive attitude toward trade relations. If the US decides to impose tariffs on Chinese goods in an aggressive way, it will be surprised by the fact that China has the ability to fight back aggressively, too. After all, the US relies on Chinese products more than China relies on US goods.
Tu Xinquan, a professor at University of International Business and Economics
Any dampening effect that we get out of political decisions is naturally something that is regrettable and would concern us in terms of losing opportunities that are out there. I think it’s two elements. One is the uncertainty how it will really be lived, and then the dampening effect of the tariff itself. In the US, we have 10,000 people working on what I call copper and iron products — transformers and motors. We are a very large buyer of steel. We are a very large buyer of copper. And naturally any trade impact, any tariff impact, could harm us. We hope that it is being implemented in a way that doesn’t have a negative impact on ABB. It is clear that the uncertainty the situation now puts into our customers might have a dampening effect on demand, because larger projects people might think about, maybe I wait a little bit until we have clarity. Ulrich Spiesshofer, president and CEO of ABB Group
It is already proved in the economic life of nations that nothing good comes from trade wars. Consequently, if tariffs are increased for steelmakers in China, it will certainly have consequences for iron ore producers, because there will be less demand, or at least price pressures, that will come from it. But my concern is not the limited consequences. My concern is the effect that these measures and countermeasures will end up having in international trade. That is important for the development of all nations, not only China — and certainly for Brazil as well.
Fabio Schvartsman, Vale’s CEO