Jan Hatzius, chief economist at leading global investment banker Goldman Sachs, has issued an updated projection for U.S. Q4 GDP growth; a lackluster 1.8 percent. This reflects a reduction of 20 basis points from the previous forecast, with Hatzius conceding that the U.S. trade dispute with China has had a negative impact far beyond what was originally assessed by Goldman Sachs.
The latest projection from Goldman Sachs on trends in the American economy are indicative of a growing belief that the ongoing and escalating trade war between China and the United Sates has greatly increased fears that it will trigger a global recession.
It appears that the leadership circles in Beijing are willing to face a major recession that severely afflicts the Chinese economy as a price worth paying to bring down President Trump in the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election. What President Xi Jinping of China may be ignoring is that a global recession may have unpredictable and disastrous repercussions for the Chinese economy and the country’s social stability, and jeopardize the future of Beijing’s “One Belt-One Road” initiative.
He was dubbed “Dr. Doom” for his uncanny and highly accurate prediction of the 2008 global financial crisis and global recession. Now, Roubini is again making dire predictions of a catastrophic global economic recession. This time, however, the decisive driver of the meltdown won’t be subprime mortgages but rather the increasingly tense relationship between the two largest economies in the world – America and China.
In an article for Project Syndicate entitled, ” The Coming Sino-American Bust Up,” the noted economist writes, “Whether or not US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agree to another truce at the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka, the Sino-American conflict has already entered a dangerous new phase. Though a negotiated settlement or a managed continuation of the status quo are possible, a sharp escalation is now the most likely scenario.“
Roubini sees a global recession occurring as soon as 2020, a predictions that other economists have also prognosticated on. With the previous global economic crisis of 2008 having consumed all the policy perceptions that central banks and sovereign fiscal stimulus had available for decision makers, the coming global economic recession will find policy makers with few silver billets remaining. In the meantime, nationalism may replace rational economics in determining the course of the next recession, which Nouriel Roubini believes will be largely determined by the increasingly strife-ridden relationship between the United States and China.
Sheldon Filger-blogger for GlobalEconomicCrisis.com
The trade war between Washington and Beijing tends to obscure the darkest manifestation of a looming economic danger for China. Though in past years much commentary has been offered on China’s “ghost cities,” the implications been largely glossed over. But they shouldn’t be.
In China’s major urban centers there are currently 65 million unoccupied apartments. This reflects more than 20 percent of all homes in China. Taking into account that housing construction and its related industrial activity are responsible for one third of all recent GDP growth in China, building zombie residential apartments are not only a non-viable long-term economic policy; this unsustainable development model will eventually have to come to an end.
When that occurs, the ramifications for President Xi Jinping and the leadership in Beijing will be inevitably dire.
The introductory summit meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump at the latter’s estate in Mar-a-Lago, Florida will ultimately have the most significant implications for the global economy. If Trump sticks to his campaign rhetoric, China and the United States are headed for a trade war, with dire effect for those two countries and the entire world economy. The atmospherics that emerged at Mar-a-Lago, give cause for cautious optimism.
Undoubtedly, Trump and his Chinese counterpart know the risks of a full-fledged trade war between the two largest economies on the planet. The positive atmosphere that emerged from the summit points to a recognition that hard bargaining is pending, but ultimately a stable bilateral economic relationship between Washington and Beijing is in everyone’s best interests.
The wild card will be if external issues, particularly North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, as well as Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, will undercut rational economic calculations.
