Hong Kong — US president-elect Donald Trump’s promise to shrink a trade deficit with China through punishing tariffs would not hurt only the world’s second-biggest economy, it would damage the rest of Asia too. That is the increasing view of economists, who say the risk of significant Trump-triggered trade tensions could slow growth in the world’s best performing region, which accounts for 67% of America’s goods trade deficit, according to Morgan Stanley. "Donald Trump’s campaign proposal to impose hefty tariffs on China has raised the spectre of 1930s-style trade wars," said Priyanka Kishore, lead Asia economist at Oxford Economics in Singapore. "While we attach a low probability to a full-blown escalation, economies across Asia will have to brace themselves for rising protectionism amid subdued global growth and rising Western populism." Kishore said another risk was that Trump would go beyond targeting expected areas such as iron and steel, and impose new trade restrictions on te...
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