Trade tensions make rest of world less keen to invest in US and China, survey finds

Trade tensions between the US and China have made companies around the world less keen to invest in either country, with the United States almost twice as unpopular, according to a new report from Allianz Trade.The report, based on an annual survey by the Paris-based international insurance company, said US-China decoupling had not materialised, but investment intention towards China had dropped “significantly” to 24 per cent of survey respondents, down from 53 per cent a year ago.The survey tracked corporate expectations for exports, global trade and supply chains by collecting views from 6,000 companies in 13 markets before and after the US-Israel strikes on Iran in February and March.Amid an overall decline in outbound investment appetite globally due to heightened geopolitical tensions, the US and China had “suffered the most” from the loss of potential future investment, the survey found, with the number of firms that considering the US an export growth platform dropping to 13 per cent, down from 17 per cent last year.US administrations in general are very protectionist“It’s clearly the understanding of companies that there will always be a rivalry between the US and China,” Allianz Trade’s head of economic research, Ana Boata, told a media briefing in Hong Kong on Thursday.Tariffs imposed by the first Trump administration in the US in 2018 “have never been taken away”, she said, adding that “US administrations in general are very protectionist”.