In the year since US President Donald Trump escalated America’s trade war with China, policymakers and financial markets have been obsessed with the dangers to both countries’ economies. Yet the real threat the conflict poses to the global economy lies elsewhere.

Despite all the lurid headlines about the trade war causing a recession in the US or some kind of collapse in China and its Asian neighbours, recent economic data reveal a very different picture: the US and Chinese economies have performed quite decently and in line with trends that were already well established before the escalation of the trade war.