US-China trade war worries Abel

The escalating trade conflict between China and United States will have implications on economic growth for the Asia-Pacific region, says Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel.
Abel, pictured, who was chairman of the finance ministers’ meeting, said this was one of the risks highlighted at their meeting.
He said United States was moving towards 25 per cent tariff imposition on Chinese imported goods into US and the Chinese were reciprocating. “The Chinese economy has been the major driver on the world economic front for a few years now,” Abel said.
“If the Chinese and the US economies get impacted, then the region will get impacted and the global economy will be affected.
“Economies will need to take that into account in terms of bolstering their resilience, to take special care about debt consolidation, fiscal reforms, buffering measures and looking for other ways to drive growth.”
Abel said both China and US said everyone needed to free and open trade but there were underlining reasons behind these actions.
“There are other elements also arising as the US economy heats up,” he said.
“They start to put import rates up.”
United States secretary of treasury international markets and investment policy Heath Tarbert said they did support “free, fair and reciprocal trade”