UN trade chief urges US to spare poorest countries

UNITED NATIONS: The top UN trade official on Thursday urged the United States to spare the poorest countries “the pain of tariffs,” as the world braces for a possible global trade war unleashed by President Donald Trump.

“When the two main global economies impose tariffs, it will affect everybody, not only the economies engaged in the tariff war,” Rebeca Grynspan, head of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said in an interview with UN News.

“We are already in a ‘new normal’ of low growth and high debt, and we are worried that the global economy will slow down,” she added.

Echoing comments by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, she expressed particular concern about the fate of smaller, vulnerable nations.

“Our emphasis has been to put attention on what can happen to countries that are more vulnerable, such as the Least Developed Countries and small island developing States,” Grynspan said. “What is happening to those countries is what really worries us.”

On Wednesday, Trump abruptly paused tariffs on most countries, announcing a 90-day reprieve for most US trading partners, while raising levies on China to 125 percent.

Then on Thursday the White House clarified that the tariffs on Chinese imports were now at a staggering 145 percent.

But the baseline 10 percent tariff on almost all other exporters has remained.

Among them are poor countries that primarily export raw materials used in American production that do not contribute to the US trade deficit “and are not competition or a national security threat to the US,” Grynspan said.

“So, maybe we can avoid starting new bilateral agreements and negotiations and spare them the pain of the tariffs,” she added.

According to Trump, more than 75 countries have already expressed interest in negotiating trade deals with the United States.

Grynspan lamented that the current uncertainty was weighing down the global economy.

“If we know the final position, we will adjust, we will have strategies and we can see how to live with the decisions that are being taken,” she said.

“But if we have a prolonged period of uncertainty, where things change all the time, this is damaging because we don’t know what to do.”