Asia must not succumb to tariff retaliation, Singapore cbank official says

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Asian economies must remain agile and not succumb to tit-for-tat tariff retaliation, a deputy managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on Friday. Retaliatory tariffs would lead to negative supply shifts that would worsen the growth-inflation trade-off and complicate monetary policy, Edward Robinson, who is also the MAS's chief economist, told a monetary policy conference."They should continue to keep the old advice to avoid throwing rocks into their own harvest and intensify regional trade integration initiatives, including in digital and services trade, and investment," Robinson said. Despite having a free-trade agreement and running a trade deficit with the United States, Singapore has been slapped with a 10% baseline tariff rate by Washington.