European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Sunday that the global economy “has not yet felt the pain” from the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Christine Lagarde said that sooner or later exporters and importers will stop accepting the reduction in profit margins caused by the tariffs and decide to raise prices.
“These two-thirds of the costs, which are essentially borne by two sides – the exporter and the importer – are based on squeezing their margins,” he said. “The question is: how long can they sustain this compression? When they can’t anymore, because the margins will be too tight, then the burden will be passed on to the consumer. It’s just a matter of time.”
Lagarde told CBC reporter Margaret Brennan that tariffs are one of two key factors that have driven the global economy into a “transformation” phase. The other, she said, is advances in technology.
“The transformation,” she said, “is caused by two things. First, by tariffs, which have changed the map of global trade, creating new alliances and transforming the way we trade with each other. And second, by the impact of artificial intelligence, which is affecting everything from data management to even … flirting and everything in between.”
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