Ivanhoe’s Friedland says fears for China on US tariffs overblown

China has reduced its exposure to the US economy since Donald Trump’s first administration, leaving it better placed to weather the punitive trade tariffs being pledged by the president-elect, according to Robert Friedland, the founder of Ivanhoe Mines.

“China still has a lot of cards to play,” the co-chairman of the Canadian miner said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg TV from Sydney. “Its exports to the US are much lower than they were in the first Trump administration. So they have a lot less sensitivity to tariffs in the US than seven or eight years ago.”

Trump has said he would impose duties of 60% on goods from China as part of his plan to build-up the manufacturing industry in the US. Friedland said Beijing was waiting to see whether Trump would follow through with his threat, and would come up with a policy response that may see the two countries “making a deal".

“China is still taking a number of steps to stimulate consumer demand to sort of get rid of its problems with local government debt, and I think over a three- to five-year term China still looks very solid,” he added.

Some overseas investors are looking to get more exposure to China equity markets, which are more attractively priced than some US stocks, he said.

Trump’s move to surround himself with people “like Elon Musk” and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs was a positive move, according to Friedland, who added that Trump was likely to run his second administration “like a real executive CEO.”

“There’s a lot of new people around Donald Trump,” he said. “If you get a lot of attractive young people from technology, I am optimistic about the future of the US.”