"Trump tariffs slow down global economic growth" - IMF

WASHINGTON, United States

United States President, Donald Trump's tariffs have "significantly" pushed the global economy toward a downshift, reducing the global economic growth forecast for 2025 to 2.8%, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a new report published on Tuesday. 

The global growth forecast was expected to stay at 3.1% in 2024 and rise to 3.3% in 2025, said IMF economic counsellor Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.

The IMF's Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR) was "put together under exceptional circumstances," following Trump's announcement in April, Gourinchas said.

China's retaliatory measures toward the US means lower bilateral trades, which is "weighing down on global trade growth," Gourinchas told the Reuters news agency.

The US' especially high levies on China and Beijing's retaliatory measures mean lower bilateral trade, which is "weighing down on global trade growth," Gourinchas told the Reuters news agency.

The GFSR's authors found that "global financial stability risks have increased significantly, driven by tighter global financial conditions and heightened economic uncertainty."

The ripple effects of Trump's decisions extend beyond Washington. Rising bond yields have increased in countries previously considered safe choices, driving up borrowing costs globally, the IMF reported.

"Emerging market economies already facing the highest real financing costs in a decade may now need to refinance their debt and fund fiscal spending at higher costs," the global lender said.

The IMF also warned that global tensions, including wars and military conflicts, could make the financial system even more unstable. 

The IMF projects that growth would slow to 0.8% in the Euro area in 2025, and to 1.2% in 2026. Both projections are some 0.2 percentage points down from January. 

Germany was set to see economic growth of 0.0% in 2025 and 0.9% in 2026, the IMF said, cutting the European Union's largest economy's growth forecast by 0.3 and 0.2 percentage points, respectively.

Petya Koeva Brooks, the deputy director of the research department at the IMF in Washington our correspondent that two negative shocks had hit the global economy.

One was the level of new tariffs, bringing the effective tariff rate to levels not seen for over a century. Then, she said, policy uncertainty that had also become very high.

"The combination of those two things have resulted in those downgrades that we've seen for most countries in the world," said Koeva Brooks.

The best way to deal with trade disruption was cooperation among willing countries to minimize the impact, she said.

"What would be very helpful at this point is to have a stable and predictable trading system. For countries to work together in order to achieve that would be the most beneficial thing for the global economy."