(Bloomberg) --

Former President Donald Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on US imports would spark a “free for all” in the global trading system that renders existing rules useless and hurts every economy, the head of the World Trade Organization said.

“I think it will result most likely in a tit-for-tat approach — other members will also look to levy these kinds of charges in return,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said at a forum in Washington hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Then, I think we will have a little bit of a free-for-all, which would upend the stability and predictability of trade.”

The presumptive Republican nominee is promising to slap 60% tariffs on imports from China and 10% duties on those from the rest of the world as he campaigns for a second term. That might send inflation above the Federal Reserve’s target, according to a recent report from Bloomberg Economics.

While Okonjo-Iweala declined to comment about the US election, she said she hopes Trump’s tariff plan doesn’t take effect, calling it a “lose-lose” situation. But if it does she urged other WTO members to “keep a cool head and not retaliate so we can preserve the world trading system.”

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