Lord Willie Haughey has raised concerns of an impending trade war with China after the US announced it will levy a 100% tariff on its imports of Chinese-built electric vehicles.
The Scottish entrepreneur’s warning comes after US President Joe Biden announced the tariff as part of a raft of economic measures designed to protect American manufacturers from cheaper imports. It’s feared the policy could escalate trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
“The Chinese government are obviously supercharging their production, which is state-aided,” said Lord Haughey.
“If you look at this now in global trading terms, obviously the United States are not happy with China. However, France’s President Emmanuel Macron also said this week that he’s definitely not happy with China. So I do wonder if there’s going to be a pushback.
“What I think is happening is the penny has just dropped that for the past three decades we have been helping China become a superpower because of the cash we’ve all been sending there.
“Governments think maybe the Chinese are using that money in a way they’re not happy with: such as allegedly infiltrating countries.
“It’s interesting to see where this is all going to go. I actually believe there’s going to be a trade war looming in the next six months.”
Speaking about the situation on their Go Radio Business Show, his co-host Sir Tom Hunter commented: “While America goes back and forth with Donald Trump and all the shenanigans happening over there, and Europe is still trying to come to terms with Brexit, the Chinese have just got on with business.
“I am so impressed with how capitalistic the Chinese actually are. They’re more capitalistic than any other nation I’ve ever dealt with.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here