Tit-for-tat tariff hikes to hit small cos: ICC

The rising trade tensions caused by tit-for-tat tariff hikes by countries like the US will certainly hit small businesses that rely heavily on imported goods and services, International Chamber of Commerce Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said today.

In a retaliatory move, China earlier this month decided to impose new tariffs of 25 per cent worth USD 50 billion on 106 American products, including aircraft and cars, as the world's two largest economies edged closer towards an all-out trade war.

The move came after the President Donald Trump-led US administration yesterday published a list of about 1,300 Chinese exports that could be targeted for tariffs.

"Open markets underpinned by the rules-based multilateral trading system have been a vital driver of prosperity across the world over the past 50 years. Any erosion of that system will come at quite a cost to us all," Mittal said.

He observed that longstanding US trade policies, such as the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), have been shown to play a key role in supporting the growth of domestic small businesses and associated job creation.

"A progressive closing of the world's largest economy to trade will damage both US and global growth prospects. In an interconnected world. International commerce cannot be governed by zero-sum policy decisions," Mittal said.

"We encourage the US and all it's trading partners to find new ways to resolve ongoing trade tensions through multilateral dialogue and without recourse to further tariff increases, he added.