President Trump’s trade war is expected to slow economic growth across the globe this year, in large part because his aggressive use of tariffs is likely to weigh heavily on the United States, the world’s largest economy.
The economic projections were released on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, in the wake of Mr. Trump’s decision to raise tariffs to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
The president has imposed a 10 percent tariff on nearly all imports, along with punishing levies of at least 145 percent on Chinese goods that come into the United States. Mr. Trump also imposed what he calls “reciprocal” tariffs on America’s largest trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, although he has paused those until July as his administration works to secure bilateral trade deals.
Mr. Trump’s approach has created paralyzing uncertainty for U.S. companies that export products abroad or rely on foreign inputs for their goods, dampening output just as economies around the world were stabilizing after years of crippling inflation. China and Canada have already retaliated against Mr. Trump’s tariffs with their own trade barriers, and the European Union has said it is prepared to increase levies if the United States goes ahead with its planned 20 percent tax.
The World Economic Outlook report projects that global output will slow to 2.8 percent this year from 3.3 percent in 2024. In January, the fund forecast that growth would hold steady in 2025.
The I.M.F. also expects output to be slower next year than it previously predicted.
Much of the downgrade for this year can be attributed to the impact of the tariffs on the U.S. economy, which was already poised to lose momentum this year. The I.M.F. expects U.S. output to slow to 1.8 percent in 2025, down from 2.8 percent last year. That is nearly a full percentage point slower than the 2.7 percent growth that the I.M.F. forecast for the United States in January, when it was the strongest economy in the world.