Frankfurt (Reuters) – Economic growth in the euro zone could go back much more than initially planned by the European Central Bank (ECB) due to American customs duties, which would contribute to slowing down short -term prices, four sources told Reuters.
The customs duties announced on April 2 by President Donald Trump were indeed much higher than what the ECB had imagined in its previous projections, in which the Central Bank calculated that an increase in American customs duties followed by a European response would amputate the growth of the euro zone in the first year by 0.5 percentage points and would strengthen inflation.
The ECB teams must now resume their models to integrate the announcements of Donald Trump, in order to offer economic projections updated for the next meeting of the institution, on April 17, said the four sources, which have direct knowledge of this file.
The four believe that the impact on growth will be greater than 0.5 percentage points, a source even believing that it could exceed a percentage point, because the uncertainty and erosion of the confidence of economic actors will add to the pressures on the activity. The economy of the euro zone would therefore stagnate, since its growth out of 2025 was estimated at the start of the year at 1%.
So low growth will probably weigh on inflation, according to sources. Some of them believe, however, that the fragmentation of international trade would lead to long -term higher structural inflation.
A spokesperson for the ECB did not wish to comment.
(Report of Balazs Koranyi and Francesco Canepa, Corentin Chappron, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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