Last Friday, China raised tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent to match the import levies slammed by President Donald Trump on its exports as the world’s two largest economies took turns putting trade barriers against each other. But Beijing said it would ignore further levies by President Donald Trump because it no longer makes economic sense for importers to buy from America, dismissing Trump’s mounting brinkmanship as a “joke” and a “numbers game”.

Though the US president insists that his tariff policy is “doing really well”, the spiralling trade war notwithstanding, global markets remain jittery. Pressure is mounting on Trump as recession risk rises. “The recession risk is much, much higher now than it was a couple weeks ago,” noted Adam Hetts, global head of multi-asset at Janus Henderson.

The dollar has slid, intensifying a sell-off in US government bonds, the world’s biggest bond market. Gold, a safe haven for investors in times of crisis, has scaled to a record high. With the dollar weakening, the selling of US assets was perhaps most exemplified by the drop in prices of the US 10-year Treasury note, long considered among the world’s safest investments.

The uncertainty unleashed by the escalation in the US tariff war against most parts of the world does not augur well for Pakistan

The same day, a top UN economist said global trade could shrink by 3pc as a result of the new US tariff measures. “There will be shifting, I........

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