{
  "title": "Trade Reckoning",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/picture-this-trade-reckoning",
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  "summary": "Stalled trade integration and rising tariffs are testing global economic resilience",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Trade trends and recent developments",
      "content": "- For decades, world trade expanded rapidly as countries lowered tariffs and embraced globalization.\n- Tariff rates fell dramatically worldwide, converging toward the low levels of the United States.\n- Since the 2008 financial crisis, trade openness has stopped rising and global imports have leveled off at about a third of GDP.\n- Trade tensions have escalated this year, and some major economies are reversing course, with US tariffs in April reaching the highest level in over a century.\n- Other countries have responded."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Consequences and vulnerabilities",
      "content": "- The new trade landscape has serious consequences for the global economy.\n- Many smaller, trade-reliant countries are more exposed to these shifts in trade patterns.\n- Trade policy uncertainty is off the charts, making it harder for businesses everywhere to plan ahead."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy recommendations and strategies",
      "content": "- Strengthen resilience and competitiveness at home by:\n  - Fortifying macroeconomic fundamentals by rebuilding fiscal buffers.\n  - Maintaining price stability.\n  - Ensuring financial soundness.\n- Implement reforms to boost productivity, lower barriers to private enterprise, and attract investment to help economies adapt.\n- Address internal and external imbalances, particularly large deficits and surpluses, which have contributed to the rise in tensions.\n- Embrace the task of building a new global economy that is more balanced and more resilient rather than seeking to preserve the old."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Attribution",
      "content": "- This article draws on an April 17, 2025, speech, “Toward a Better Balanced and More Resilient World,” by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- Trade Reckoning\n  - Trade Reckoning (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Trade Reckoning (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/06/picture-this-trade-reckoning"
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    "Published: June 2, 2025",
    "For decades, world trade expanded rapidly as countries lowered tariffs and embraced globalization.",
    "Tariff rates fell dramatically worldwide, converging toward the low levels of the United States.",
    "Since the 2008 financial crisis, trade openness has stopped rising and global imports have leveled off at about a third of GDP.",
    "Trade tensions have escalated this year, and some major economies are reversing course, with US tariffs in April reaching the highest level in over a century.",
    "Other countries have responded.",
    "The new trade landscape has serious consequences for the global economy.",
    "Many smaller, trade-reliant countries are more exposed to these shifts in trade patterns.",
    "Trade policy uncertainty is off the charts, making it harder for businesses everywhere to plan ahead.",
    "Strengthen resilience and competitiveness at home by:",
    "Implement reforms to boost productivity, lower barriers to private enterprise, and attract investment to help economies adapt.",
    "Address internal and external imbalances, particularly large deficits and surpluses, which have contributed to the rise in tensions.",
    "Embrace the task of building a new global economy that is more balanced and more resilient rather than seeking to preserve the old.",
    "This article draws on an April 17, 2025, speech, “Toward a Better Balanced and More Resilient World,” by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.",
    "**Trade Reckoning**"
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