Name: IMF slashes US growth forecast warning it will be hardest hit by Trump tariffs | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-04-23T00:56:03.000Z
Duration: 7 min 1 s
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The economy to be hardest hit by America's new tariffs could be America's.

That's the prediction of the International Monetary Fund, which has slashed its forecast for global growth, saying President Trump's trade tariffs and the uncertainty they've caused will lead to a significant slowdown.

Basic passive voice

The UK's growth is forecast to be down as well.

And you can see the volatility on the markets.

This is the Dow Jones from the end of March to early today.

That's made up of 30 prominent companies, including household names like Apple and Nike and Disney.

This is a drop in the value of their share prices after the so-called Liberation Day.

You can see that on April the 2nd, when the tariffs were announced.

Our economics editor Faisal Islam reports.

And most of it is imported from Europe, including the UK, but overwhelmingly from China.

And Donald Trump's tariffs are now hitting home here.

And they will increase our prices an average of 31% across all of the products.

More supplier emails came in while we were there.

Not just inflation in action, but chaos for businesses.

We won't print any prices on our catalogue this year.

You can't put prices in because it's so uncertain.

Other business people, I know home builders that have loaded up on lumber and are storing it on empty lots, steel manufacturers that have loaded up on steel, anticipating the increase in prices.

Entire passenger jets are now being sent back with a return label from China to Boeing's Seattle base after China's retaliatory tariffs.

All of that is reflected in the IMF's new forecast, with the whole world hit and the US hardest hit of the major economies in terms of downgrades to growth.

The UK is also now forecast to grow notably more slowly, but still faster than the other G7 European economies.

Risks to the global economy have increased and are firmly to the downside.

First, while we are not projecting a global downturn, the risk it may happen this year have increased substantially.

As the world's finance ministers gather here in Washington with no clear path to alleviate these trade tensions, another acute concern arises, which is doubts about the US's role in anchoring the world's financial system through the dollar.

President Trump has been criticising the head of his central bank as a total loser because he won't cut interest rates.

That has spread further concern in markets on top of everything else.

Back in Trump country in a rural Arizona biker bar, the president's supporters remain resolute, but others are starting to feel the impact.

I think everyone should be worried right now.

When there's a lot of uncertainty it creates panic in the market.

Other countries taxing us and putting high tariffs on our goods that we don't even know about and I think the fact that now it's coming to light, I feel really confident that our president right now is going in the right direction and I back him 100%.

We got to take a little bit of a hit to be able to get to the other side.

And it hurts, it hurts a little bit, but it's going to hurt a lot more later if we don't.

The Trump trade war is starting to be felt on the home front and many from the rest of the world hope that helps rein it in.

Well, first of all, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, arrives at this meeting tonight.

Do you get a sense that the US is in deal mode with the UK and also possibly with China?

Well, Fiona, I mean, we have the encapsulation of the chaos that underpins the seesawing chart, as you called it, that you just displayed, really just in this minute right now.

Because the reason why stock markets in America bounced back up today, as you showed, was the sense in which the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, had suggested a sort of olive branch out to the Chinese that a deal would be necessary, essentially, eventually.

But as we speak right now, the President, Donald Trump, is in the White House announcing, we think, some sort of trade announcement.

And he said, I'm going to play hardball with China, which was not the message which underpinned the stock markets going up.

So you get this sense of slight chaos of different voices in the administration saying slightly different things.

Into this melee comes the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who's just about to touch down here in the US.

And she'll be meeting the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson.

She says the changing world is unsettling for families.

But she says that she will always act to defend British interests and that we need a world economy that provides stability and fairness, more trade and global partnerships between nations with shared interests.

Is that a hint that, yes, she will try and do something with the US, very difficult to know exactly what they want, but perhaps the future is also doing deals with the likes of the people in the Pacific, with the Canadians, perhaps a better deal with the European Union.

If you can't rely on exactly the negotiation with the US, perhaps that's part of this as well.

She'll be talking to all those people when she arrives here for this IMF meeting.

But we await what Donald Trump says over at the White House.

Well, in the last few minutes, Donald Trump has been speaking.

He's been talking about a possible deal with China.

Let's get more with our North America editor, Sarah Smith.

What more can you tell us about what he's been saying?

Yeah, Donald Trump's in the Oval Office at the moment with his Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson.

And he was asked if he agreed with him that these tariffs on China were ultimately unsustainable and that they would have to do a deal.

And he indicated that was what they want to do.

Have a listen to Donald Trump in his own words.

I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going to play hardball with China.

I'm going to play hardball with you, President Xi.

But ultimately, they have to make a deal, because otherwise, they're not going to be able to deal in the United States.

But they have to and other countries have to make a deal.

Now, that's really interesting, because it's not always been clear that Donald Trump did want to do a deal with China.

Often it sounds as though he wants to box China out of the American economy.

But they are eager to do deals with a lot of other countries around the world.

He delayed a lot of the tariffs for 90 days.

And then he said they had 90 days to make 90 deals around the world.

And they're talking from countries from the EU to Japan to India, hoping to try and get some kind of trade deals announced soon, which will, of course, decrease the amount of tariffs that could be levied against these countries.

Well, we've watched this with interest, Sarah, outside the White House.