Amid worldwide trade tension orchestrated by United States of America President Donald Trump, the World Bank cut its 2025 global growth forecast on Tuesday.
The bank reduced its projection for global GDP growth to 2.3 percent in its latest economic prospects report, down from 2.7 percent expected in January.
This comes amid Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs, strained ties with countries, and weighed-on economic outlooks.
“That’s the weakest performance in 17 years, outside of outright global recessions,” said World Bank Group Chief Economist Indermit Gill.
“High levels of policy uncertainty and this growing fragmentation of trade relations,” he added.
In another projection, the World Bank expects that by 2027, global GDP growth will average 2.5 percent in the 2020s, which would be the slowest rate in any decade since the 1960s.
The gloomier projections come as Trump imposed a 10 percent tariff on imports from almost all U.S. trading partners in April 2025 and higher rates on dozens of these economies, which he has since suspended until early July.
Trump also engaged in tit-for-tat escalation with China, although both countries have agreed to pause their trade war and temporarily lowered these staggering duties as well.
The tit-for-tat between the U.S. and China had also impacted global oil prices, as Brent and WTI crude stood at $66.81 and $64.98 per barrel as of Wednesday morning.
