Asia hit the hardest by Trump’s tariffs
From Beyond Borders
From Jacopo Dettoni
Beyond Borders
The latest news and analysis on cross-border investment
| On the day after Donald Trump introduced sweeping reciprocal tariffs, it’s time for trade partners around the world to assess the damage. While the hit will be felt across the board, it will be particularly hard on Asian countries, whose exports-led trade model has to recalibrate to adjust to the new reality of global trade, as Danielle finds out in the piece below. Mr Trump’s antics often draw attention away from some of the underlying reasons for his policies. In his speech on April 2, he emphasised a couple of times that tariffs will help “pay down the national debt”. The US is not the only country facing hard choices to straighten its fiscal imbalances. Other than the usual suspects in Europe and elsewhere, one is Saudi Arabia. After years of bombastic statements and otherworldly investment visions, the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund PIF is tightening the belt and slashing spending across some of its most iconic projects, including Neom, as Alex reports. That’s it for this week, keep an eye on this space as a very intriguing issue of our magazine is about to come out. That’s it for this week. We love to hear from our readers, get in touch at jacopo.dettoni@ft.com. |
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| DEEP DIVES |
| Asia’s export model hit hardest by Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs Steep import duties threaten region’s trade-driven growth and US investment ties Saudi Arabia’s PIF recalibrates spending strategy Sovereign wealth fund is slashing budgets for its ambitious mega projects, triggering lay-offs |
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| FDI DISPATCHES United StatesThe Trump administration has established an Investment Accelerator that will benefit $1bn-plus projects in the US. Its executive order claims Trump 2.0 has already attracted $3tn in investment so far. SingaporeUMC, Taiwan’s second-largest semiconductor producer after TSMC, has inaugurated a $5bn new fab in Singapore. United Kingdom The Chinese owner of British Steel, Jingye, rejected a £500m offer by the British government to keep its Scunthorpe plant up and running. It was looking for a £1bn support package, the FT reported. Panama The sale of CK Hutchison international ports to US Blackrock missed an original April 2 deadline to finalise the deal as Beijing is exerting pressure against it. |
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