US-China trade war shocks cost global value chains 3-5 years of growth, United Nations study says
- Report from the UN Development Programme looking at the post-pandemic future of global value chains found that trade within those supply lines shrank in absolute terms along with other types of trade
- Tariffs are still being applied on billions of US dollars of goods under a US-China trade war that began under former president Donald Trump
Trade shocks fuelled by unilateral tariffs between the United States and China have undone three to five years worth of growth among global value chains in affected countries, according to a United Nations policy brief.
The report from the UN Development Programme looking at the post-pandemic future of global value chains found that trade within those supply lines shrank in absolute terms along with other types of trade.
Still, they will remain at the core of economic recovery in the Asia-Pacific region even as global manufacturers consider moving production closer to home.
“The trade policy shock is therefore very large,” the UN report states. “However, while there is some unravelling of global value chain linkages, there is by no means a wholesale disintegration of the model.”