Once upon a time, based on the prevailing mood at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, one could predict with a fair amount of confidence what the world economy really had in store for the current year. This time, in the week when this world economic summit of finance ministers and governors is being held (from 21 to 25 April), that is not the case, because not only are expert forecasts different from news from real commodity and capital markets, but the speeches of leading figures from the IMF and the World Bank themselves suffer from a kind of "internal contradictions".
This now primarily refers to the usual "introductory speech" by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who said that she "does not forecast a global recession," although the announcement of trade wars will reduce growth forecasts and in some countries "increase inflation forecasts." If we add to this strange thesis some other usually indicative facts about the state of the global economic conjuncture, and above all the news about a certain drop in oil prices (that is, their oscillation at a low level, between 60 and 65 dollars per barrel) and an up-and-down (but still) tendency to fall in the value of shares on global capital markets (in connection with Trump's acrobatics with increases in US tariffs, and then their selective suspensions for 90 days) - then it could be said, somewhat far-fetchedly, that a gap is emerging again between economic theorists and practitioners.
In the aforementioned introductory "tone" of the mood at this year's IMF and World Bank meetings, Director Kristalina Georgieva generally assessed that "tariff wars are once again testing the resilience of the world economy, which has coped so well with the challenges of the energy crisis and inflation since the start of the war in Ukraine". Trying to explain the consequences of the "erosion of trust" between countries and the erosion of trust in the world economic order, which consequently results in the phenomenon of "trade tensions rising and global stock prices falling", and the main question becoming "where something is produced, not how much it costs", Georgieva did not dare to directly blame the Trump administration in the US for promoting a "tariff war" with the entire world. According to her, this threat to world trade is a consequence of most countries turning to the issue of their own security, and theories of self-sustainability dominate - which marginalizes and further slows down the development of small countries. However, despite all this, the IMF does not expect a global stagnation crisis and forecasts (modest) growth of the world economy this year of 2,7 percent, while the World Bank expects growth at a rate of 3,3 percent (compared to the average global growth in recent years of 3,7 percent). Perhaps it is unnecessary to say that we should understand Kristalina Georgieva's lack of expectation of global stagnation, but rather of inflation, because the main "shareholder" of the Bretton Woods institutions is Donald Trump, and he has not hesitated to quite vulgarly attack the American governor, the head of the FED, for not lowering the reference interest rate.
Having already mentioned oil, whose price, despite the unstoppable "electrification" of the global automotive industry (which neither Putin nor Trump will be able to stop, no matter how hard they try, each for their own reasons), still remains one of the parameters of global economic trends, it should be noted that no one actually expects its price to rise significantly this year. On the one hand, the OPEC+ cartel of oil exporters is announcing an increase in supply (i.e. production), and on the other hand, it seems that Trump's efforts to revitalize American industry and increase the US share of the global oil export market - do not have good prospects either.
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