IMF raises forecast for U.S. economy, with caveat
Trump trade stance might curb growth
WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund on Monday raised its forecast for the U.S. economy over the next two years, saying Presidentelect Donald Trump’s policies should boost economic growth, particularly in 2018. But officials warned that if Trump’s protectionist trade proposals set off a trade war, that could be “quite destructive” for the global economy.
The IMF also increased 2017 growth projections for a number of other countries including China, Germany, Japan and Britain, but warned that the global economy faced a number of downside risks from rising protectionism to a jump in interest rates.
The 189-nation global lending agency’s latest economic outlook took note of the significant impact Trump’s election has had in giving a boost to U.S. stock prices, interest rates and the dollar. The new outlook puts U.S. economic growth at 2.3 percent this year and 2.5 percent in 2018. That would be an improvement from lackluster U.S. growth around 1.6 percent in 2016.
During the campaign, Trump said his economic policies of tax cuts, regulatory reform and boosts in infrastructure spending would lift U.S. growth to annual rates of 4 percent. The new forecast represents a boost of 0.1 percentage point this year and an increase of 0.4 percentage point for 2018, when Trump’s stimulus plans would be expected to be phased in. That is a halfpoint higher growth than the IMF was forecasting in October, before Trump’s election.
In contrast, the World Bank last week left its U.S. forecast unchanged at 2.2 percent growth in 2017 and 2.1 percent for 2018, arguing that there was too much uncertainty over the fate of Trump’s proposals to incorporate them in a forecast.
But IMF Chief Economist Maurice Obstfeld told reporters at a briefing Monday that he viewed the IMF’s upgrade for the United States as a moderate increase that took into account the U.S. election results.
“We now have the presidency and the legislative branch in the same hands. It seems very clear to us that some of the promises will be delivered on,” Obstfeld said. “We know the direction of policies. We don’t know the specifics.”
He said that the IMF had chosen not to incorporate Trump’s threats of imposing higher tariffs on countries such as China and Mexico if their trade policies do not change because of a belief “that at the end of the day, countries will realize these are not in their best interests given the threat of retaliation. … The outbreak of a trade war would be quite destructive.”
The new outlook boosted the growth forecast for China, the world’s second-largest economy, by 0.3 percentage point to 6.5 percent this year. The IMF expects the Chinese government to providing further stimulus to the economy.