US President Donald Trump’s trade war presents an even tougher challenge for emerging market policymakers than the Covid-19 crisis five years ago, a top official at the IMF has warned.
Gita Gopinath, the fund’s first deputy managing director, said the unpredictable impact of tariffs on developing economies and global markets would make it particularly difficult for central bankers to support their economies.
In the early stages of the pandemic “central banks everywhere were moving in the same direction in the sense of easing monetary policy very quickly, but this time around the shock has differential effects,” Gopinath told the Financial Times.