Top Miner Sees U.S.-China Trade Spat Limiting Global Growth

Rising U.S.-China trade tensions threaten to curb consumer purchasing power, crimp productivity growth and limit global economic expansion, according to the world’s biggest mining company. The confrontation between the world’s top two economies, “along with an increasingly unpredictable policy formation process” in some nations, serves to reduce consumer confidence and business certainty, BHP Billiton Ltd. said Tuesday in its annual report. Protectionist policies and political uncertainty lower the achievable ceiling for global economic growth, it said.