Christine Lagarde warned on Wednesday that the rules that underpin global trade were “in danger of being torn apart” by protectionist forces in what the IMF managing director said would be “an inexcusable, collective policy failure”.
Speaking at the University of Hong Kong, Ms Lagarde warned of the gathering threats of a trade war and the rapid rise in public and private debt around the world. But she stresses that the global economy continued to grow strongly and remained optimistic about the remainder of 2018 and 2019.
Tit-for-tat tariffs announced by the US and China have sparked fears of a damaging trade war between the world’s two largest economies.