Investors have withdrawn funds from emerging and European markets over the past two months, with the negative impact of fears over a trade war, experts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said. The bank said on Friday that about $24 billion had been withdrawn from European equity funds and $13 billion in emerging market stocks in the past eight weeks as the United States stepped up its assault on its main trading partners. Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese imports worth $34 billion dollars, and Beijing was not shy in undertake countering action. US President Donald Trump warned that the United States may aim to impose tariffs on Chinese goods worth more than half a trillion dollars. In a week to July 4, investors withdrew about $2.9 billion from European equities, with European flows continuing to flow for the 17th week in a row, while emerging market stocks lost $1 billion, continuing losses for the seventh week in a row. Earlier this month, Bank of America analysts Merrill Lynch said equity funds suffered the second largest weekly drop-off this week as $29.7 billion of high-risk assets were withdrawn as worries about growing US trade protection continued. US bank funds lost $24.2 billion in the third-largest weekly exodus, and at the end of the first half-year of high volatility, rising US interest rates and growing trade protection around the world, data from EBFR cited by Bank of America showed.