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Donald Trump’s plans for larger tariffs, decrease taxes and curbs on immigration threat reviving inflation and stopping the Federal Reserve from reducing rates of interest, the IMF has warned.
Unveiling forecasts that predicted faster-than-expected progress for the US economic system, the fund’s chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas mentioned the president-elect’s insurance policies may result in a mixture of surging demand and shrinking provide which might “probably reignite US worth pressures”.
He added in a weblog put up on Friday that “larger inflation would forestall the Federal Reserve from reducing rates of interest and will even require charge hikes that will in flip strengthen the greenback and widen US exterior deficits”.
Gourinchas additionally warned that monetary deregulation — one other Trump precedence — may set off a “boom-bust cycle” if pushed too far.
The IMF elevated its 2025 progress forecast for the US economic system to 2.7 per cent from its earlier estimate of two.2 per cent, forward of all different G7 international locations and near final 12 months’s 2.8 per cent.
In an replace to its World Financial Outlook, the fund additionally predicted the US would broaden by 2.1 per cent in 2026, 0.1 of some extent larger than in its October forecasting spherical.
The expansion estimates, which come simply three days forward of Trump’s inauguration on Monday, don’t take account of coverage proposals from the incoming administration, which the IMF mentioned it couldn’t but incorporate in its forecasts.
The president-elect has laid out aggressive plans to impose blanket tariffs of as much as 20 per cent on all US imports, implement a crackdown on undocumented immigrants and enact sweeping tax cuts, prompting jitters in bond markets which are cautious of inflation dangers and extreme deficits.
The fund referred to near-term “upside dangers” to the already “sturdy” US economy, contrasting the power of America’s efficiency to different components of the world the place it sees dangers of a weaker-than-expected outlook.
The IMF’s central forecasts assume a continued easing of world inflation, allowing additional charge cuts in huge economies. However the evaluation signalled components of Trump’s agenda may undermine efforts to subdue inflation.
The IMF mentioned larger tariffs or immigration curbs would ship detrimental shocks to US provide, including to cost pressures. It added that proposed US insurance policies comparable to looser fiscal coverage and deregulation would stimulate demand and enhance inflation within the close to time period.
The fund mentioned that whereas deregulation may enhance the US economic system’s capability over a half decade by eradicating crimson tape and stimulating innovation, there have been risks of going too far.
“There’s a threat that extreme deregulation may additionally weaken monetary safeguards and enhance monetary vulnerabilities, placing the US economic system on a harmful boom-bust path,” Gourinchas mentioned.
The IMF forecasts additionally highlighted the transatlantic divergence between the US and massive Eurozone economies.
The fund predicted that the area’s largest economic system, Germany, would develop by simply 0.3 per cent this 12 months, after two consecutive years of contracting output.
The broader Eurozone would develop by simply 1 per cent this 12 months — considerably slower than the 1.6 per cent forecast for the UK.
China’s economic system was now anticipated to broaden by 4.6 per cent this 12 months — sooner than the IMF beforehand anticipated.
Gourinchas harassed that, ought to Beijing’s fiscal and financial measures fail to spice up demand, the Chinese economy was uncovered to a “debt-deflation-stagnation lure”, the place falling costs enhance the true worth of debt and undermine exercise.
The worldwide economic system was now anticipated to develop by 3.3 per cent each this 12 months and subsequent — barely above the October estimate however properly beneath its historic common of three.7 per cent, the IMF mentioned. Headline inflation was anticipated to ease from 4.2 per cent in 2025 to three.5 per cent in 2026.
However the fund famous the dangers of “policy-generated disruptions” to the method of taming inflation. “The danger of renewed inflationary pressures may immediate central banks to lift coverage charges and intensify financial coverage divergence,” the IMF mentioned. “Greater-for-even-longer rates of interest may worsen fiscal, monetary, and exterior dangers.”
Information visualisation by Keith Fray in London
