Summers Warns Trump Could Trigger an 'Uncontrolled' Cold War with China

Forex - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, in a speech at an event organized by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, warned that President-elect Donald Trump's election victory last month could further empower the China hawks within both parties.

In a discussion about how Trump's election might affect foreign economic policy, Summers stated, "We need to move away from a model of uncontrolled Cold War akin to the one that prevailed between the U.S. and the Russians in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and enter into a more controlled rivalry with China."

He noted that the early Cold War posed dangerous relations for the U.S. with Russia, leading to "horrific consequences" such as the Berlin Blockade and the Cuban Missile Crisis. "We need to make a transition without fearing risky events, as we did in the early 1960s after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I hope we can find this path in our relations with China," he added.