Sri Lanka, April 4 -- US tariffs have reached levels that are transforming the global economic outlook, significantly raising US recession risks and constraining the Federal Reserve's ability to lower interest rates further, says Fitch Ratings.
The "Liberation Day" tariff increases outlined by the US government on 2 April sharply exceeded the already steep rises assumed in our March 2025 Global Economic Outlook (GEO).
These increases impose a minimum tariff rate of 10% for all US trade partners and sizeable additional increases on a subset of 57 trade partners. The adjustments take US effective tariff rates (ETR) to about 20% for imports from the EU and about 64% for China, above our March assumed levels of 15% and 35%, respectively. Othe...