Thought Leadership - Trade Scenarios amid the Uncertainty

Global Trade Scenarios for these Uncertain Times (and Tariffs)

The current economic and political situations have been generating a great deal of turmoil and uncertainty. What we do know is that tariffs and tariff uncertainty are higher.

There are many theories as to the what, the why, and the impact of the tariffs and resulting trade conflicts might be, including:

• The intention is to lower US imports, but balancing US goods trade would take a multi-year recession to accomplish.
• Uncertainty and higher cost of capital will weigh on investment spending and hiring will slow as a result.
• US goods inflation will be higher, but elsewhere inflation risks are now more skewed to the downside.

The impact of the tariffs will be broad, and the following chart is a high-level summary of key structural implications across three Global Trade Scenarios. The implications range from the macroeconomic level to the sector and individual business level.

Global Trade Scenarios: Medium and Long-Term Implications
High-level summary of key structural implications across scenarios


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Global Trade Scenarios: US impact


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Of course, this is all subject to change, but it is interesting to see how the impacts change over the potential scenarios and consider how some or all of these factors may have an impact on your business specifically


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