PWC Survey Shows 6 out of 10 Global CEOs is Worried About US Protectionism

Top business leaders are freaking out about trade.

Nearly six in 10 global CEOs are worried about protectionism and rising trade barriers, according to a new survey by PwC. That’s up from 40% in 2012.

Fears are even more pronounced in the U.S. and Mexico, where 64% of business leaders are concerned.

The increase has a lot to do with Donald Trump. The president-elect of the U.S. has threatened to scrap free trade deals and impose tariffs on many of the country’s top trading partners.

PwC said concern about protectionism among the U.S. CEOs increased by a full 10 percentage points after the election: 61% of those surveyed before Nov. 8 were worried compared to 71% after Trump’s victory.

“I think we’ll see the emergence of nationalism, economic nationalism, in a much more fundamental way than we’ve seen over the last 20 years,” John Patrick Hourican, CEO of Bank of Cyprus, said in response to the survey.

PwC interviewed 1,379 CEOs in 79 countries for the survey between September and December. They represent companies of all sizes across different sectors.

via CNN

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza