The tariffs announced by the administration of Donald Trump will hit the world growth and will have as first affected Canada, China, the United States itself, and especially Mexico, according to forecasts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The agency projects that this year the Mexican economy falls 0.3 percent and that the next rebound 1.4 percent, due to the impact of tariffs imposed by the United States, uncertainty and associated geopolitical tensions, as well as greater difficulties in accessing financing.
With these projections, which imply the greatest cuts published in the perspectives of the world economy (Weo), the IMF points out that no country will be so affected by uncertainty and commercial measures launched by the administration of the United States, such as Mexico. Above all, if one takes into account that in January, growth estimates for this and next year were 1.4 and 2 percent, respectively.
These projections were made based on the reciprocal tariffs announced by Donald Trump, on April 2, which did not bring a base lien for Mexico. However, a general rate of 25 percent is firm on the country to all goods that are not part of the T-MEC, one of 25 percent to steel and aluminum-and as part of it to the beer packaged in that material-, and 25 percent on cars and auto parts, except the content of US origin.
For Latin America and the Caribbean, the IMF projects a moderation of growth, with an advance of 2 and 2.4 percent this and next year, respectively. In both estimates there were cuts and the agency explained that they are mainly due to a significant reduction in growth in Mexico (…) which reflects a weaker activity of the provisions of 2024 and early 2025, as well as the impact of tariffs imposed by the United States, uncertainty and associated geopolitical tensions, and a hardening of financing conditions.
For the world economy, also with the stage of April 2 – before Trump announced a pause in the imposition of tariffs for most countries, except China, with which it has engaged in a war of figures – the agency reduced 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points its growth prognosis, although it ruled out the scenario of a recession.
Instead of 3.3 percent advanced progress for both years, published only in January for the agency, now the IMF foresees an advance of 2.8 percent in 2025 and 3 percent in 2026.
Balazo on the foot
The United States himself resented a fall in its growth forecast this and the following year. By 2025, the IMF foresees an advance of 1.8 percent, 0.9 percentage points lower than those published in January, and almost half of this cut is completely attributable to tariffs; In addition to having increased to 40 percent the possibility of a recession in that country.
For China a growth of 4 percent is projected, lower by 0.6 percentage points compared to the expected three months ago. While in the European Union, subject to relatively lower effective tariffs, the decline has been just 0.2 percentage points, to 0.8 percent.
The IMF stressed that while many of the tariff increases are suspended, the combination of measures and countermeasures has raised the fees to its highest level in a century. Only the United States effective tariff rate exceeded the levels reached during the Great Depression. And in general, this pays for trade growth to be only 1.7 percent this year.
