Data and Financial Journalist
On April 2, dubbed “Liberation Day” by President Trump, the U.S. will impose new “reciprocal” tariffs on imports, escalating trade tensions with key partners.
While countries like China, Mexico, and Canada are already expected to be hit hardest, many European and Asian economies will likely see a huge impact, prompting global warnings of retaliation, trade wars and a global economic slowdown.
Greece has been struggling hard to meet the requirements needed to be a member in the Eurozone. Moreover, following the 2008 financial crisis in the US, Greece’s economy got smaller by 25% since 2009. Germany, France, Italy and Spain are the most important economies accounting for most of the Union’s GDP.
The US dollar has been on the rise every day setting high records. With the upward pressure on dollar, stronger dollar could tighten financial conditions across the growth. Further the rising dollar could be offsetting the benefit of low cost oil. Over the past six months, the trade-weighted dollar has risen 25% and faster than anytime the last 40 years. US dollar is a global unit of account in debt contracts and that could be a cause of slow down in the rest of the world. Not only that, if the dollar continues to increase, inflation and US economic could weaken.
With the talks of a New Development Bank in China, BRICS has managed to raise some questions. Will the association of emerging markets manage to create stir in the the global economy or will it be another alliance of economies that just have meetings over nothing. Amidst many criticisms, economies of Brazil and Russia can pose more complication than contribution to the group. But it is definitely too early to completely write off BRICS.