FX.co ★ US-China trade conflict affects global economy

According to Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, a well-known saying that there are no winners in a war applies even to a trade conflict. "Any trade war affects those that participate and those that don't," she said responding to journalists’ question about the trade war between the US and China and its consequences. Christine Lagarde believes that the direct and indirect impact and the extent that it undermines confidence and certainty will affect all. If trade tensions persist, while the IMF hopes this will not happen, economic entities, particularly from the private sector, may have to reorganize their supply chains and the way they run their business. "Nobody wins a trade war in our view we all have to lose," - Ms Lagarde assumes.

The conflict initiated by Donald Trump will result in a lot of victims. First of all, the world economy which is already experiencing a number of serious problems, will suffer. The trade dispute between the two largest economies in the world will look beyond the economic interests of the United States and China. Global markets are sensitive to increased tensions around the current situation. Ms Lagarde recalled that in these conditions, countries that account for 70 percent of the global economy would experience a synchronized slowdown in economic growth rates this year. In 2019, the growth is predicted to be 3.3 percent, and then it would go up to 3.6 percent in 2020. “The rebound is precarious and subject to downside risks," the head of the IMF noted.