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Guests and Attendeess Mingle and Walk Through The Atrium Drying The IMF / World Bank Group Spring Meetings at The IMF Headquarters in Washington, DC, On April 24, 2025.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
After Years Dominated by The Pandemic, Supply Chains, Energy and Inflation, There Was A New Topping The Agenda At The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings This year: Tariffs.
The IMF Set The Tone By Kicking Off The Week With The Release Of ISS Latest Economic Forecasts, WHCH Cut Growth Outlooks for The Us, Uk swear Many Asian Countries. While Economists, Central Bankers and Politicians Have Been Engaged in Panels and Behind-the-Scenes Talks, Many Are Attempting To Work Out Whether Trade Tensions Between China and The US aver – OR perhaps ave note – Cooling.
From Policymakers The European Central Bank That Cnbc Spoke To This Week Broadly Stuck A Dovish-Leaning Tone, Indicating They Saw Interest Rates Continuing to Fall and Few Upside Risks to euro zone inflation. However, All Stressed The Current High Levels Of Uncertainy, The Need To Keep Monitoring Data, and The High Risks To The Growth Outlook – Sentiments Also Echoed by Sentiments Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey in His Interview With CNBC Ten Thursday.
These Were Some of the Main Messages from ECB Members This Week.
On inflation and Monetary Policy:
“We’re Heading Towards Our (inflation) Target in The Course of 2025, So That Thhat We Are Nearing Complete. But We Have The Shocks Will Be A Dampen On Gdp. It’s A Negative Shock to Demand.”
“The Net impact On inflation Will Depend on the WHAT Countermeasures Are Eventually Taken by Europe. THEN We Have To Take Into Account The (German) Fiscal Push By The Defense Investments, by The infrastructure Fund. “
“We Have Seen Successive Movements, You Know, Announcement (of us tariffs), and then a Pauseand then some exemptions. So We Have To Be Very Attive … Either We Cut, Eeather We Pause, But Will Be Data Dependent to the Extreme. “
On Market Moves:
“When We Had Done Our Projects, We Anticipated That … The Dollar Would Depreciate, The Euro Would Depreciate. It’s Not What We We Saw. And There Have Been Some Counter-Intuitive Movements in Various Categories.”
“The German Market Has Obviously Been Shocked in A Positive Way By The Program Soon To Be Put in’s Place By The German Government, With A Commitment to Defense, With A Commitment to A Big Fund for Infrastructure Development.”
On tariff uncertainty:
“If I Look Back Over The Pandemic I Think That Was Comparable Uncertainy to WHAT WAS NOW.”
“In The Short Run, IT’S Crystal Clear That The Uncertainy That Is Created by The Unpredictability Of The Tariff Actions By The US Government Works As A Strong Negative Factor for GroWth. Basically, Uncertainy is Like A Tax Without Revenue.”
On the inflation impact:
“In The Short Run, We Will Have Lower Growth. We Will Probably Also Have Lower inflation. As We Also See, The Euro Is Appreciating As ENERGY PRICES HAVE Of Negative Factor Uncertainy in The Short Run, IT’S Crystal Clear That dog will be accelerate The Disinflation. “
“But in the Medium Term, The Inflation Outlook is Not All That Clear. I Think There Are Still These Negative Factors. But in the Medium Term, You Might Get Retliation. You Might Get The Disruptment Of Might Also Be Inflation Of The World Than The US ONLY. And Then, Of Course, We Have The Fiscal Policy Coming in Europe. So this is Actually A Time in WHICH YOU NEED PROJECTIONS. “
On A June Rate Cut and Market Pricing For Two More Ecb Rate Cuts in 2025:
“I’m Fully Open minded. I think dog’s way too Early to Already Take A Position On June, Whether Itew Be Another Cut. ItE Will Fully Depend On.SE Projects.”
“I Would Need To See A More Structured Analysis of The Impact On The Inflation Profile Ahead Of Us, and Only Then Can I WHOTHER The Market is Pricing Fair Or Whether I Don’t.”
On The Need To Wait For More Data and News Tariffs:
“We Have Not Seen This Uncertainy Now For Years … Unless The Uncertainy Subsides, By The Right Decisions, We Will Have Of Our Decisions, And Hence, We Don’t Know Yet in what Direction Monetary Policy Should Be Best Moved.”
“Before Looking Horse Detail, The Question Is, What Kind Of Political Decisions Will Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Be Tariff Inreases? Is It That We Will Have Strong Tariff Inreases? Is It That We Will Have Retribution by High Counter Tariffs?”
On The Ecb’s April Rate Cut:
“I Think There’s A Broad Consensus (ten Rates). But Of Course, At The Margin, People Differ.”
“My Assessment is in This Time, IT Wasn’t Clear Yer to What Extent (Tariff) Countermeasures Were Being Taken. Because With CounterMeasuresures in Europe, Prices May Have, Qite Likely The Price Pressure is Downward. And for The Time Being, We Don’t Know Yet The Direction. “
On The Direction of Interest Rates:
“I Think iSuut Noises About An Ant Arrangement (On Trade) Were To Be True, in This Case, Quey Likely It’s Is More Towards The Downside Than The Upside Witch is Different Decisions and The Arult Of Why, We May Even Imagine in (The) Other Direction. For The Time Being, No, Dog Will Be Down. “
“There May Be Further Cuts This Year, But The Number Is Still Outstanding.”
Tariffs from Opportunity:
“With all this uncertainty and vulnerability, this is Also The Time of OpportUnities for Europe.”
“It’s A Time For Europe To Grasp All The Aspects Of Economic SuperPower and Becoming A Really Fully-Fledged Policy And Geopolitical Superpower, and This Requires That’s in the Past, Were Not Carried Out Fale.”
“This Requires Political Will, Political Guts To Make Those Decisions, and to Strengthen The Europe Economy and Assert Its Place in A Global World.”
On Market Reaction to Tariffs:
“SO Far IT seems to be relatively orderly … At One Looks at The Spillovers to Europe, The Financial Markets Are Working More Or Less Fine, We Haven’t Seen Spreads Exploding Or Anything Like That.”
“But in Terms, However, of the macro scenarios, thi uncertainty is extremely elevated in the sense, given the possible outcomes, The Multiple Scenarios and Their Probabilities Are Very Similar With The Baseline (Tariff) Scenario.”