World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned on Thursday against a "tit-for-tat" approach to retaliating against United States President Donald Trump's prospective tariffs on certain goods from some countries, stressing that such policy would have "catastrophic" consequences.
Speaking during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Okonjo-Iweala explained that such moves would cause "double-digit" losses in the global gross domestic product (GDP). She also spoke against another threat of creating "two trading blocks" that would not exchange goods, saying that would reduce the real global GDP by 6.4%, which she described as "far from trivial."
Okonjo-Iweala remarked that threatening with tariffs should lead to a dialogue about trade relations rather than sanctions, noting that "perhaps" this is what Trump truly seeks.
