US President Donald Trump’s “badly misguided” tariff policy is impairing the efficiency of America’s economy despite its short-term resilience, and the damage will need to be repaired down the road, according to a former US Treasury secretary.

“It’s a very unwise policy, and yet it seems to be the policy they’re committed to,” said Robert Rubin, who administered the Treasury from 1995 to 1999, during the Democratic presidential administration of Bill Clinton.

Rubin, 87, was speaking via video link at the 2025 Bund Summit in Shanghai on Thursday.

“I think that a lot of Trump’s policies … have the potential of having an adverse effect over time,” he said, adding that the president “is really doing some damage … I think we have to repair the damage that Mr Trump is doing, and that may take some time.”

Rubin’s remarks come amid escalating US tariff threats and trade frictions that are roiling global supply chains and unsettling investors, with the world closely watching how China and the US navigate their increasingly fraught trade relationship.