IMF Forecasts “Major Negative Shock” Due To Tariffs

The Washington Post reports:

The global economy will slow sharply this year, weighed down by President Donald Trump’s imposition of the highest import taxes in more than a century and the cloud of uncertainty that has billowed in their wake, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

Trump’s double-barreled tariff plan — a 10 percent tax on nearly everything the United States imports each year plus significantly higher levies on goods from dozens of nations — will hurt the United States and its trading partners, the fund said.

But the slowdown will be particularly sharp for the U.S. economy, which will grow this year at an annual rate of 1.8 percent, one third lower than its January estimate and a full percentage point below last year’s mark, the fund said.

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