International rating agency Fitch has revised its global economic growth forecast for 2025 downward to 2.3 percent, lower than the 2.9 percent projected for 2024, according to its latest report on Tuesday.
The report noted that the global trade war launched by the U.S. government will reduce U.S. and world economic growth, push up U.S. inflation, and delay the Fed's interest rate cuts.
Fitch predicted that the U.S. economic growth rate in 2025 will be 1.7 percent, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous forecast, and the U.S. economic growth rate is forecast to drop to 1.5 percent in 2026.
The report said that raising tariffs will lead to higher consumer prices, lower real wages, and increased corporate costs in the U.S., while the increasing policy uncertainty will impact enterprise investment, and retaliatory measures from other countries will also hit U.S. exporters.
Looking ahead, Fitch expected the global economy to remain weak in 2026, with the economic growth rate falling to 2.2 percent.
The trade war will also trigger economic recessions in relevant countries such as Canada and Mexico, said the report, lowering the economic growth forecasts for the two countries by 0.7 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points, respectively, in 2025.
In addition, Fitch said that the tariff shock is estimated to push up the U.S. inflation rate by one percentage point in the near term, and the Fed may only cut interest rates once this year.
Fitch Ratings lowers 2025 global growth forecast to 2.3 pct amid U.S. tariff impact
China's development has never been a "threat" to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.
Some Western media and think tanks are peddling so-called "China Shock 2.0," saying that "China is achieving fast development in high-tech sectors such as renewable energy and AI and relies on foreign markets to absorb its overcapacity, thus reducing the market share of developed countries and sending more serious shock waves to the global economy compared with the era of traditional manufacture industry," while there are foreign commentators saying that the "China Shock 2.0" argument ignores the genuine innovation occurring within the Chinese industrial ecosystem and that Chinese export is the exact booster of the global economy that is needed in the turbulent period and more indispensable than ever.
Commenting on that, Lin said: "From the world's factory to the world's market and innovation powerhouse, China's development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the 'old three' of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide. China's green production capacity represented by the 'new three' of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels has bridged the gap between supply and demand in global green development and bolstered the global energy transition and low-carbon development. Moreover, China's high-tech products represented by the 'new new three' of robots, AI and innovative drugs have broken high-tech barriers and monopoly and enabled people in more countries to access affordable new technologies," said the spokesman.
"Openness and cooperation bring about progress and win-win result. China's development has never been a 'threat' to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates 'shocks' to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains. China will stay committed to high-standard opening up, defend the multilateral trading system and provide more certainty and new impetus to the world economy with its own steady development," said Lin.
China's development never a threat: FM spokesman
