Globalisation “may have now run its course” in its current form, according to the chair of HSBC, as geopolitical tensions and US tariffs threaten to upend existing global trade.

Speaking at the bank’s global investment summit in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Sir Mark Tucker warned that trade tensions created uncertainty that posed a “serious potential risk to global growth”, in remarks reported by the Financial Times. He predicted stronger economic ties would develop between regional groups and trade blocs.

Since starting his second term as US president in late January, Donald Trump has imposed various tariffs on leading trading partners such as Canada, Mexico and China, as well as global steel and aluminium tariffs. The EU has announced retaliatory measures from April, while the UK has chosen to adopt a “pragmatic approach” while it tries to negotiate a wider trade deal with the US.

Trump is expected to impose more tariffs on 2 April, when his administration will announce “reciprocal tariffs” on countries around the world.

Last week, officials at the US Federal Reserve cut their US economic growth forecasts and raised projections for price growth as the central bank kept interest rates on hold. Some of the increase in the Fed’s inflation expectations was “clearly” due to tariffs, according to its chair Jerome Powell.

“As we consider present developments … we believe that globalisation as we knew it may have now run its course,” Tucker said in his speech.

“Economic considerations guiding optimally efficient supply chains led to one of the world’s greatest periods of wealth creation we have ever seen. The balance of economic power changed as a result, and what used to be sustainable no longer is.”

This does not mean, however, that the world will “regress or geo-fragment and de-globalise”. New opportunities will arise of stronger economic ties between different “political groupings and trade blocs”, including the “Brics-plus group of countries,” which will increasingly trade with each other, Tucker predicted.

The Brics group, originally made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has expanded to include Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia.

Tucker said the world was undergoing a “period of deep and profound change” in trade, economic policy and international security arrangements.

HSBC has said it is the world’s largest trade finance bank, and its network gives its clients access to 85% of the world’s trade flows. It is also a leading foreign exchange house and payments provider.

HSBC is in the middle of a big shake-up announced last October by its new chief executive, Georges Elhedery, the bank’s former finance chief who took the reins from Noel Quinn. The bank is splitting its operations into eastern and western markets, to help it cut costs and navigate rising geopolitical tensions.

Tucker said economic links between Asia and the Middle East, an important focus for the bank, would “soar” in the coming years.

“The rising trade and financial linkages of these economies with the rest of the emerging world suggests there could be notable growth spillovers,” Tucker said. He said more emerging markets would join the Brics group to have a stronger voice on the world stage.