An escalating cold war between US and China would be a blow to global growth, IMF official says

• A brewing US-China cold war could drag global economic growth down as much as 7%, an IMF official said this week. 
• The emergence of "connector" countries is why the effect of ongoing tensions hasn't been bigger. 
• Trade fragmentation carries a higher price tag compared to the US-Soviet cold war, the official said. 

A more intense cold war between the US and China would have a potentially dire impact on the global economy, according to an official from the International Monetary Fund. 

Speaking at Stanford University on Tuesday, IMF deputy managing director Gita Gopinath said that while US-China tensions haven't yet devolved into a full-blown cold war, such an escalation would be a major headwind to global growth.