Closing post
Time for a recap…
Anxiety over Donald Trump’s trade wars continues to grip policymakers.
The International Monetary Fund has urged global leaders to resolve trade tensions rapidly.
Speaking at the IMF’s Spring Meeting in Washington, managing director Kristalina Georgieva said “the first and most urgent priority” is “for countries to work constructively to resolve trade tensions as swiftly as possible, preserving openness and removing uncertainty”.
She added:
A trade policy settlement among the main players is essential, and we are urging them to do it swiftly, because uncertainty is very costly.
Georgieva, who described the mood at the Spring Meeting as “anxious”, also urged Beijing to “pull back from too much intervention”, and rebalance its economy towards more domestic consumption.
However, China has instead squashed hopes of an immiment breakthough. Beijing said that the US should “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures” if it wants trade talks.
China also insisted that reports of ongoing US tariff talks were ‘baseless’. He Yadong, a spokesperson for China’s ministry of commerce, said:
There are currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States.
Any claims about progress in China-US economic and trade negotiations are baseless rumors without factual evidence.
In her latest global policy agenda, Georgieva also warned that trade tensions could test the economic and financial stability of individual countries and the world economy, and the resilience of the International Monetary System (IMS).
Germany’s government highlighted those risks today, by cutting its growth forecast for this year to zero.
Companies are lining up to report the damage from tariffs.
Unilever and Nestlé have raised prices for consumers – and indicated further increases could be on the way amid cost inflation and Donald Trump’s tariff war.
Pepsico cut its profit guidance for the year, while consumer goods maker Procter & Gamble lowered its sales and profit forecast.
In the financial markets, Wall Street is rallying today, but London’s FTSE 100 only closed a little higher.
The dollar has dipped against a basket of rival currencies, with Deutsche Bank warning that we could be facing a ‘structural dollar downtrend’.
Back in the City, the UK’s blue-chip share index has ended the day pretty much where it started.
The FTSE 100 index has closed 4 points higher at 8407 points, up 0.05% today.
Although a small gain, that’s the Footsie’s 9th daily rise in a row, as it claws back its losses after the trade war blew up.
