KPMG: A global trade war would be worse than 2009 global recession - AFR

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) today published a report from KPMG, one of the Big Four auditors globally, underscoring the risks of a global trade war.

Key Headlines:

“A global trade war would be worse than many imagine.

Tipping much of Europe, the UK and Canada into recession.

Costing as many as 285,000 Australian jobs.

Economic shock likely to last longer than the global financial crisis.

Even a modest barrage of retaliatory measures against the Trump administration by target countries such as China would see Australia's economy shrink as trade flows are squeezed and global demand is suppressed.

A more dramatic round of tit-for-tat actions that would raise tariffs on goods by an average of 10 percentage points would trigger a 1 percent fall in Australian gross domestic product and wipe out more than half the employment gain of the past 12 months, the firm found.”