A foreign economist says companies around the world better overcome fallout from the trade dispute between the U.S. and China through innovation rather than waiting for the spat to end. 

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an international economics forum in Seoul on Friday, Frederic Warzynski, professor of economics and business at Aarhus University in Denmark, predicted the trade war between the two world’s largest economies will last for up to 20 years. 

Noting that Washington waged similar long-standing trade conflicts with Tokyo when Japan emerged as the world’s second largest economy in the 1980s, he said the U.S. will likely keep China’s emergence in check with prolonged trade pressure. 

He said such trade spats will only widen political uncertainties, urging companies to deal with the issue by innovating themselves.