Tariffs Promoted By Trump Could Harm World Economy, Warns IMF

The International Monetary Fund has warned that trade tariffs favoured by the US presidential candidate Donald Trump could hurt global growth, as it upgraded its forecast for the UK economy.

- Phillip Inman

The Washington-based organisation said tariffs trigger tit-for-tat trade wars that impoverish the economies involved in the dispute and the wider global economy.

It said there had been a very sharp increase in the number of trade-distorting measures implemented by countries over the past five years, from 1,000 in 2019 to 3,000 today, and that a fresh round of tariffs would create further harm.

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF's chief economist, said: "There is definitely a direction of travel here that we are very concerned about, because a lot of these trade-distorting measures could reflect decisions by countries that are self-centred and could be ultimately harmful not only to the global economy ... but also hurtful for the countries who implement them as well."