The escalation of Donald Trump’s trade hostilities has yet to make a dent in the buoyant US growth figures — but anxiety is rising over the impact of his tariffs on the country’s economy.
The central concern, say executives and economists, is not a sudden interruption of an economic expansion that is on track to deliver annualised growth of more than 4 per cent in the current quarter, but a steady and relentless drag on corporate earnings and spending that materialises over many quarters.
A survey by Business Roundtable in May showed that 95 per cent of top chief executives judged foreign trade retaliation to be a moderate or serious risk, with 90 per cent warning about the danger of higher input costs. Those views were collected before the president hit China with a new round of tariffs on $50bn of goods and threatened further levies on a wider array of products.