US slow growth raises protectionist threat

WASHINGTON: Persistently high unemployment and a weak economic recovery could persuade US policymakers to slap protectionist duties on imports from China and around the world, an economist said.

“Trade protection is far from an ideal policy, and indeed it carries serious dangers, but in current circumstances it may offer America the only way out of its difficulties,” Paul Ashworth, chief US economist for Capital Economics in Toronto, said in an analytical note.