On the evening of 8th Beijing time, Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently said that the growing tension in global trade relations is "very scary", which may drag down the global economy and employment growth.
In an interview with the media, Bill Gates said that the global economy 'is doing very well now', but may be affected by tariff issues.
He said: 'Of course, these trade problems are terrible. If people turn inward and raise tariffs, the global economic performance will be problematic. Foreign trade can bring huge benefits.
After the US President Donald Trump launched a trade war, many countries have been involved.
Last week, China said it would impose retaliatory tariffs on US$600 million worth of US goods. A few days ago, the US government disclosed that Trump had talked with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. He was asked to consider raising the proposed tariff rate for the $200 billion Chinese imports from 10% to 25%.
In addition, the European Union, Canada and Mexico are involved in many trade disputes with the United States.
Bill Gates believes that raising tariff rates will affect many industries, especially those with complex supply chains.
Gates said: 'The problem is, you know that we will use tariffs, we will force others to make compromises, but the dispute will escalate, so in the end we will have a lot of tariffs, and all the plans made by people are based on the assumed supply. Will function normally, they can carry out import and export trade as usual. For this reason alone, global economic growth will be seriously dragged down, which in turn will affect employment growth.
Before Bill Gates made the above remarks, many important international organizations warned that a comprehensive escalation of trade wars would jeopardize global economic growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in July that the United States has repeatedly issued tariffs on its trading partners. The threat will cause a 0.5% loss of global economic GDP in 2020, or about $430 billion.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) report released in July also showed that from October 2017 to May 2018, the so-called 'trade restrictions' measures were added between G20 member countries. WTO General Secretary Roberto - Roberto Azevedo issued a statement at the time saying that these measures have constituted a 'real threat'.