IMF chief downplays impact of Trump trade war: "Trade is like water"

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva downplayed the impact of President Trump’s trade war while speaking at the Fortune MPW Summit.

Transcript

00:00Clearly, this thing that trade is dead is completely overstated.

00:05Trade is like water.

00:07You put obstacle, it goes around it.

00:10What we are seeing, and this has been like this for thousands of years,

00:15when we came to assess where is the world economy these days,

00:18we look at what is happening with trade.

00:21And actually, the impact of trade tensions is more muted for three reasons.

00:26One, because the tariffs that were announced in the United States in April

00:33that shocked the world, at that time, 23%.

00:37Now, nominally, they are still high, 17.5%, but less.

00:43And when you look at collection, how much is collected, it is more around 10%.

00:47Still much more than the under 3% before,

00:51but not as dramatic impact as initially we anticipated.