Moody’s sees trade war impacts as manageable
Trade tensions between the United States and China will likely escalate further this year and have a negative but manageable impact on global growth, Moody’s Investors Service said on Tuesday.
“We expect the trade dispute between the US and China and other countries to be prolonged, with further trade measures being put in place over the rest of 2018,” said Elena Duggar, chair of Moody's Macroeconomic Board and co-author of the report “Cross-Sector: Global Trade Monitor”.
“We think the trade dispute will stop short of full implementation of the most severe potential measures announced so far, including tariffs on all US automotive imports or a breakdown of NAFTA.”
In Moody’s view, the trade dispute will have a manageable aggregate impact on global growth and inflation.
However, if there is a large reaction in the financial markets or if confidence is undermined, the dispute has the potential to derail the global economy.
The trade restrictions are expected to cut about 0.25 percentage points off US real GDP growth in 2019, offsetting some of the economy’s underlying strong momentum and fiscal stimulus gains.
Trade restrictions will contribute to a slowdown in China’s growth, cutting real GDP growth by around 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points in 2019.
Moody’s assumes that these effects will be largely offset by moderate fiscal and policy easing.
