IMF stated that US-China trade war will cut 2019 global growth to its slowest pace since the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
The IMF said its latest World Economic Outlook projections here show 2019 GDP growth at 3.0%, down from 3.2% in a July forecast, largely due to increasing fallout from global trade friction.
The global crisis lender said that by 2020, announced tariffs would reduce global economic output by 0.8%. That translates to a loss of about $700 billion — the equivalent of making Switzerland’s economy disappear.
The growth downgrade assumes that all announced U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are put in place, along with Chinese retaliation. These include a 5 percentage point U.S. duty increase on Chinese goods originally scheduled for Tuesday and 10% tariffs on $156 billion in Chinese goods scheduled for Dec. 15.
For 2020, the Fund said global growth was set to pick up to 3.4% due to expectations of better performances in Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. But this forecast was a tenth of a point lower than in July and was vulnerable to downside risks, including worse trade tensions, Brexit-related disruptions and an abrupt aversion to risk in financial markets.
