By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund will assess U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff and tax-cut policies as details emerge, but it’s “too early to speculate” on their potential impacts, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said on Thursday.
Kozack told the first regular press briefing since Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory that it was still “early days” for his economic plans to take shape. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The Republican president-elect has vowed to impose tariffs of 60% on Chinese imports into the U.S. and duties of 10%-20% on goods from elsewhere. Trump also wants to extend expiring 2017 tax cuts and enact new tax breaks, which budget forecasters say could add new debt of $7.5 trillion over 10 years.
“The exact impact of any of these policies is very much going to depend on the details and that’s why we will wait to see the details before we make our assessment,” Kozack said.
Worries among the IMF’s 191-member economies about a return of Trump to power dominated the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in October. But IMF officials, including IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, have been circumspect about the impact Trump’s plans could have on the global economy and international financial institutions.
Georgieva has long warned against rising trade barriers and growing geopolitical fragmentation of the global economy.
On Tuesday, the director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, Krishna Srinivasan, warned that tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs threaten to disrupt growth prospects across the region. He did not mention Trump’s tariff plans directly, but economists widely view the president-elect’s tariff plans as likely to spark retaliation and raise costs.
