Craig Stirling
10 min read
In This Article:
(Bloomberg) --
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Reports in the coming week may give the fullest reading to date of how major economies are faring with trade disruptions, halfway through President Donald Trump’s 90-day hiatus on so-called reciprocal tariffs.
Chinese consumer and industry data on Monday will be followed by purchasing manager indexes on Thursday from around the world, pointing to the growth impact from the policy of widespread US levies — unveiled by Trump on April 2, then put on hold on April 9.
A collective view of the fallout could emerge from Group of Seven finance ministers, depending on whether they can agree on a communique when they meet in Canada starting on Tuesday.
The European Commission, meanwhile, will release economic forecasts on Monday, while an appraisal of the impact on financial stability will come from the European Central Bank two days later.
With PMI numbers for April already pointing to a slowdown in global growth to a 17-month low, the combined picture of the week’s events and reports will showcase the extent of nervous shock still reverberating from Trump’s attempt to rewire the global trading system.
While the Chinese data are for April, S&P Global’s PMI numbers are for May, offering an initial take on activity in economies including Australia, Japan, the euro zone, the UK and the US. The collection timetable for those surveys means they’ll capture the tariff de-escalation between Washington and Beijing agreed after talks in Switzerland.
“The international trading environment clearly remains highly uncertain amid worries over the impact of the surviving tariffs levied by the US and mainland China, which are widely expected to dampen global growth and raise inflation,” Chris Williamson and Jingyi Pan, economists at S&P Global, said in a report.
What Bloomberg Economics Says:
“April import prices suggest the US side is continuing to pay most of the cost of tariffs so far. While we don’t know much about how trade patterns shifted in April, import-price indexes that exclude the cost of tariffs have been little changed since the start of the year. This suggests US importers are paying essentially the same price they would have paid in the absence of tariffs, plus the tariff.”
—Chris G. Collins and Anna Wong, economists. For full analysis, click here
