Soren Skou runs the world’s largest shipping company, AP Moller-Maersk. In an interview from his offices in Copenhagen, Skou explained that Donald Trump’s insistence on applying tariffs could greatly hamper global trade growth by .1 to .3 percent annually, but that the results for the U.S. economy would be the worst, “perhaps 3 or 4 percent.”
The company transports about 20 per cent 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 criticise the trade policies of US President Donald Trump.
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“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,” Mr Skou said. “Big US consumer brands like Nike produce in all of Asia, not just in one country, so there will be a substitution effect.”
And of course, as money disappears from manufacturers’ profit margins and the costs of creating the things that Americans consume rise, so will the prices of things—and that doesn’t really bother the top 1 percent of our country, because they can afford it.