Coronavirus to become bigger trade barrier than US-China spat

The coronavirus is turning into the world’s biggest trade barrier that will exceed the implications of the U.S.-China tariff spat that kept exporters on edge last year.

The virus epidemic will cost global trade $320 billion a quarter, according to calculations by Euler Hermes. Losses in the first three months of the year will equal an increase of global import duties by 0.7 percentage point, and are comparable to the hit to foreign sales from all trade-war-related levies introduced in 2019, the trade credit insurer said.

Since the disease emerged in China late last year, it’s spread to more than 70 countries, infected nearly 100,000 people and claimed 3,400 lives. Factory closures and suspended travel to contain the outbreak have disrupted business at a scale that’s pushed governments and central banks around the world into action to inject stimulus.

Euler Hermes predicts global trade will shrink an annualized 2.5% in the first quarter and another 1% in the following three months, before recovering somewhat in the second half. Trade will grow a mere 0.4% this year, it said, with Hong Kong, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Italy, France, the U.K. and Germany among the countries hardest-hit.

Despite the dire outlook, Euler Hermes’s chief for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Ron van het Hof, said there’s no reason to panic: The global economy will still grow 2.2% in 2020, just 0.2 percentage point less than previously forecast.

“We say this on the condition that there won’t be any widespread panic and that business in China will normalize after three months,” he said. “That’s what we currently assume.