The IMF warned that the global economy is going through a delicate moment

Lagarde said the global economy continued to slow down in the first quarter, so the global outlook would be lowered below the 3.5% estimated for this year.

In his speech to the American Chamber of Commerce, he recalled that "in January, the IMF forecast global growth of about 3.5% for the years 2019 and 2020, which is lower than what we saw recently ".

"Since then, he added, growth continues to lose momentum".

"Only two years ago, 75% of the global economy had rebounded and this year we expect a 70% slowdown in the global economy", alerted the Managing Director of the Fund.

As a cause of this global slowdown, Lagarde emphasized "the rise of trade tensions and the tightening of financial conditions in the second half of 2018".

More specifically, he mentioned the trade dispute between the United States and Chinatriggered by the protectionist program launched by US President Donald Trump, which resulted in higher tariffs on hundreds of Chinese products and similar retaliation by Beijing.

He mentioned as an example that, according to the calculations of the Fund, if tariffs on all goods traded between the United States and China increased by 25 percentage points, annual GDP would be reduced by 0.6 percent in the United States and 1.5 percent in China..

Lagarde's expressions arrive a week before the multilateral body publishes its new global forecasts, as part of its joint spring meeting with the World Bank (WB) to be held in Washington.