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By Norman VILLAMIN, CIO Wealth Management Head of Asset Allocation, Union Bancaire Privée (UBP)
The dawn of the 21st century saw China join the World Trade Organization and Western economies suffer another dose of deflation. This deflationary shock not only brought inflation steadily lower but also dragged down interest rates right around the world as China’s low-cost manufacturing matched the low-cost raw materials that had entered the global economy a decade earlier in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s entrance onto the world stage as its pre-eminent commodity exporter.
The Trump trade wars of 2017/18 began to upset this balance, as the reliability of the United States as the primary customer of the world’s...
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