Trump's Levies Not Likely to Trigger Near-Term Recession, Says IMF Chief

US President Donald Trump's push for sweeping tariffs is creating great uncertainty and denting confidence, but is not likely to trigger a near-term recession, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva said on March 31.

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WASHINGTON -

Ms Georgieva, in her first major interview since Mr Trump took office, underscored the challenges facing a global economy that is still posting underwhelming growth after scarring from the Covid-19 pandemic, but cautioned against being overly alarmed.

The IMF will likely lower the economic outlook slightly in its next World Economic Outlook (WEO) update in about three weeks, but "we don't see recession on the horizon", she said in a Reuters interview.

"What we see in the high-frequency indicators is indeed indicating that consumer confidence, investor confidence are weakening somewhat, and we know that that then translates into an impact on growth prospects," she added.

But the IMF was not yet seeing "a dramatic impact" from the tariffs implemented and threatened so far by Mr Trump since his return to the White House, she said.

The IMF in January nudged up its global economic growth estimate for 2025 to 3.3 per cent from 3.2 per cent in its previous estimate in October 2024, with a half-percentage-point upgrade to the US outlook to 2.7 per cent accounting for most of that uptick.

Now, though, Ms Georgieva expects the WEO update due in April when the IMF holds its spring meetings in Washington to reflect a small downward "correction" to those estimates, she said.