The president of AICEP, Ricardo Arroja, considered this Thursday “highly unlikely” that foreign direct investments from the United States in Portugal will be put at risk with the new administration of Donald Trump.
Questioned by Lusa about the possible impact of the protectionist economic plans of the President-elect of the United States, the leader of the Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal (AICEP) admitted that there is still a lot of speculation about the type of tariff plans that will be implemented by the new administration , but highlighted that the “North American and European economies are very integrated, and Portugal and the United States in particular”.
“For a long time, in a non-circumstantial way, these ties have been developed and promoted and, therefore, it is highly unlikely to me, for example, that foreign direct investments from the United States in Portugal will be called into question because there is a new administration In other words, these are long-term investment projects,” said Ricardo Arroja, on the sidelines of the 7th edition of the ‘Portugal Economic Forum’, organized by AICEP in New York.
“The cyclical circumstantial elements are obviously important and we will all have to be attentive to the trade policies that the United States may adopt, but, at this moment, I think it is speculative that we are trying to anticipate some of these measures, because there is a legal and legal process and regulatory process that has to be covered first in America before it has an impact on the rest of the world”, he added, in statements to Lusa.
The president of AICEP also highlighted the importance of “looking at the numbers” of trade and investment flows, stressing that “exports of goods and services, especially increasingly services from Portugal to the United States, are growing at clearly, at very high rates, and the same has happened with foreign direct investment in Portugal”.
During his election campaign, Donald Trump – now elected President – promised to maintain the path of tightening the policy of tariffs on goods imported from Europe and, in particular, China.
These measures, in part, were maintained (and in some cases expanded) by the current President, Joe Biden, but Trump now wants to increase rates in several sectors, citing the need to strengthen the competitiveness of the North American economy.
Trump proposes new tariffs, of 10% to 20%, on many foreign products, with those from China potentially reaching rates of 60%, seeking to end the outsourcing of several economic sectors.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
