SFC Exclusive | Chief Economist Sees Risk of Weaker Growth and Higher Inflation under Trade Conflict

南方财经全媒体记者吴斌 上海报道

The global trade conflicts seem to be heating up. What are the implications for the global economy? What will be the overall trend of the global economy going forward?

Tom Orlik, Chief Economist for Bloomberg Economics, had an exclusive interview with SFC journalist recently. “20 years ago, the consensus was the free trade is good. Free trade drives gains and productivity, which in the end make everyone better off,” he said. “Today, that consensus on the benefits of free trade looks really different.”

“People still think the trade is good, but they also have other competing objectives: economic security—making sure workers in their own country have enough jobs and making sure crucial supplies they might need in a war or a pandemic are being produced at home; national security—making sure they're not selling goods with the military application to their geopolitical rivals,” Orlik added. “So that free trade policy is now being balanced against a lot of other policies. ”

Is that helping achieve those objectives on economic security and national security? Orlik said “time will tell, but what we can certainly say is for the global economy, it means the risk of weaker growth and higher inflation. ”