It would take US President Donald Trump “a decade or two of persistent effort” to redraw global supply chains using tariffs, the boss of the world’s second-largest container shipping group has warned.
Vincent Clerc, chief executive of AP Møller Maersk, told the Financial Times that trade volumes between the US and China had dropped 30-40 per cent in April as a result of Trump’s swingeing tariffs but that other routes, such as between Asia and other emerging markets, had remained strong.
“The supply chain today around the world is something that has been built over decades. If you want to upend it or change it in a deep way it will take decades,” he said. “It takes time for companies to make decisions, for factories to be built. It’s very unrealistic for supply chains to be changed very quickly due to tariffs.”