A leading US economist has likened Donald Trump’s tariff battle with China to the Vietnam war, arguing that both sides will be caught in a quagmire and unable to find a face-saving exit.
Adam Posen, the head of the Peterson Institute in Washington and a former Bank of England policymaker, spoke to the Guardian after penning an article for the US magazine Foreign Affairs. He said Trump’s tactics had “echoes of presidents Johnson and Nixon in the Vietnam war, unable to believe that they wouldn’t win if they only upped the attacks, and unwilling to negotiate a real peace”.
