China-US trade rivalry will last for ‘next 50 years’, warns ex-WTO head
Businesses told to plan for the long term, as supply chains and critical industries face mounting risks
“Bumpy” US-China relations will persist for decades as the rivalry shifts from trade to the weaponisation of strategic sectors and supply chains, according to a former head of the World Trade Organization.
Bilateral ties will experience “ups and downs, and to and fro, and left and right”, said Pascal Lamy, former WTO director general, during a media event at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.
“Their geostrategic competition… will not abate,” he said. “If you have both the ambition to be No 1 and the feeling that the other one is a threat for you, it leads inevitably to this.”
Lamy noted that a broader trend has emerged beyond Trump’s attention-grabbing tariffs: “decoupling where there is a strategic sensitivity in what you produce on the one side and, on the other side, weaponising where you have comparative advantage”.