WASHINGTON: The global war against inflation has largely been won — and at surprisingly little cost to economic growth, the International Monetary Fund declared Tuesday.
In its latest assessment of the global economy, the IMF predicted that worldwide inflation will cool from 6.7 percent last year to 5.8 percent this year and to 4.3 percent in 2025. It estimates that inflation will fall even faster in the world’s wealthy countries, from 4.6 percent last year to 2.6 percent this year and 2 percent — the target range for most major central banks — in 2025.
The slowdown in inflation, after years of crushing price increases in the aftermath of the pandemic, led the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to cut interest rates this year after they had aggressively raised them to try to tame inflation.
“The battle against inflation is almost won,″ Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, told reporters Tuesday. ”In most countries, inflation is hovering close to central bank targets.″
Inflation had accelerated when the world economy recovered with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, leaving factories, freight yards, ports and businesses overwhelmed with customer orders and creating shortages, delays and higher prices. The high borrowing rates engineered by major central banks, along with the end of supply chain logjams, brought inflation dramatically down from the four-decade highs it hit in mid-2022.
And to the surprise of forecasters, the economy — especially the largest, in the United States — continued to grow and employers kept hiring despite higher borrowing costs.
“The decline in inflation without a global recession is a major achievement,” Gourinchas wrote in a blog post that accompanied the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook.
The IMF, a 190-nation lending organization, works to promote economic growth and financial stability and reduce global poverty. On Tuesday, besides sketching a milder inflation outlook, it upgraded its economic expectations for the United States this year, while lowering its estimates for growth in Europe and China. The IMF left its forecast for global growth unchanged at a relatively lackluster 3.2 percent for 2024.
The IMF expects the US economy to expand 2.8 percent this year, down slightly from 2.9 percent in 2023 but an improvement on the 2.6 percent it had forecast for 2024 back in July. Growth in the United States has been led by strong consumer spending, fueled by healthy gains in inflation-adjusted wages.
Next year, though, the IMF expects the US economy to decelerate to 2.2 percent growth. With a new presidential administration and Congress in place, the IMF envisions the nation’s job market losing some momentum in 2025 as the government begins seeking to curb huge budget deficits by slowing spending, raising taxes or some combination of both.
The IMF expects China’s economic growth to slow from 5.2 percent last year to 4.8 percent this year and 4.5 percent in 2025. The world’s No. 2 economy has been hobbled by a collapse in its housing market and by weak consumer confidence — problems only partly offset by strong exports.
The 20 European countries that share the euro currency are collectively expected to eke out 0.8 percent growth this year, twice the 2023 expansion of 0.4 percent but a slight downgrade from the 0.9 percent the IMF had forecast three months ago for 2024. The German economy, hurt by a slump in manufacturing and real estate, isn’t expected to grow at all this year.
Now that interest rates are coming down and likely to aid the world’s economies, the IMF warned, the need to contain enormous government deficits will likely put a brake on growth. The overall world economy is expected to grow 3.2 percent in both 2024 and 2025, down a tick from 3.3 percent last year. That’s an unimpressive standard: From 2000 through 2019, before the pandemic upended economic activity, global growth had averaged 3.8 percent a year.
The IMF also continues to express concern that geopolitical tension, including antagonism between the United States and China, could make world trade less efficient. The concern is that more countries would increasingly do business with their allies instead of seeking the lowest-priced or best-made foreign goods. Still, global trade, measured by volume, is expected to grow 3.1 percent this year and 3.4 percent in 2025, improving on 2023’s anemic 0.8 percent increase.
Gourinchas also suggested that economic growth could end up being weaker than expected if countries take steps to reduce immigration, which has helped ease labor shortages in the United States and other advanced economies. And he said armed conflicts, like those in Ukraine and the Middle East, could also threaten the economic outlook.
India’s economy is expected to 7 percent this year and 6.5 percent in 2025. While still strong, that pace would be down from 8.2 percent growth last year, a result of consumers slowing their spending after a post-pandemic boom.
The IMF predicts that Japan’s economy, hurt by production problems in the auto industry and a slowdown in tourism, will expand by a meager 0.3 percent this year before accelerating to 1.1 percent growth in 2025.
The United Kingdom is projected to register 1.1 percent growth this year, up from a dismal 0.3 percent in 2023, with falling interest rates helping spur stronger consumer spending.
IMF’s view: Global fight against high inflation is ‘almost won’
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IMF’s view: Global fight against high inflation is ‘almost won’
- The IMF predicted that worldwide inflation will cool from 6.7 percent last year to 5.8 percent this year and to 4.3 percent in 2025
- The global financial institution estimates that inflation will fall even faster in the world’s wealthy countries
US immigration authorities appear to have begun deporting migrants to South Sudan, attorneys say
- South Sudan has suffered repeated waves of violence since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan despite a court order restricting removals to other countries, attorneys for the migrants said in court documents.
Immigration authorities may have sent up to a dozen people from several countries to Africa, they told a judge.
Those removals would violate a court order saying people must get a “meaningful opportunity” to argue that sending them to a country outside their homeland would threaten their safety, attorneys said.
The apparent removal of one man from Myanmar was confirmed in an email from an immigration official in Texas, according to court documents. He was informed only in English, a language he does not speak well, and his attorneys learned of the plan hours before his deportation flight, they said.
A woman also reported that her husband from Vietnam and up to 10 other people were flown to Africa Tuesday morning, attorneys from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote.
They asked Judge Brian E. Murphy for an emergency court order to prevent the deportations. Murphy, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, previously found that any plans to deport people to Libya without notice would “clearly” violate his ruling, which also applies to people who have otherwise exhausted their legal appeals. A hearing in the case is set for Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Some countries do not accept deportations from the United States, which has led the Trump administration to strike agreements with other countries, including Panama, to house them. The Trump administration has sent Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador under an 18th-century wartime law hotly contested in the courts.
South Sudan has suffered repeated waves of violence since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011 amid hopes it could use its large oil reserves to bring prosperity to a region long battered by poverty. Just weeks ago, the country’s top UN official warned that fighting between forces loyal to the president and a vice president threatened to spiral again into full-scale civil war.
The situation is “darkly reminiscent of the 2013 and 2016 conflicts, which took over 400,000 lives,” Nicholas Haysom, head of the almost 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission.
The US State Department’s annual report on South Sudan, published in April 2024, says “significant human rights issues” include arbitrary killings, disappearances, torture or inhumane treatment by security forces and extensive violence based on gender and sexual identity.
The US Homeland Security Department has given Temporary Protected Status to a small number of South Sudanese already living in the United States since the country was founded in 2011, shielding them from deportation because conditions were deemed unsafe for return. Secretary Kristi Noem recently extended those protections to November to allow for a more thorough review.
Trump selects concept for $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system
- Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has announced the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program — a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space.
Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system will be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”
It’s likelier that the complex system may have some initial capability by that point, a US official familiar with the program said.
Trump, seated next to a poster showing the continental US painted gold and with artistic depictions of missile interceptions, also announced that Gen. Michael Guetlein, who currently serves as the vice chief of space operations, will be responsible for overseeing Golden Dome’s progress.
Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.
For the last several months, Pentagon planners have been developing options — which the US official described as medium, high and “extra high” choices, based on their cost — that include space-based interceptors. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail plans that have not been made public.
The difference in the three versions is largely based on how many satellites and sensors — and for the first time, space-based interceptors — would be purchased.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years. Trump has requested an initial $25 billion for the program in his proposed tax break bill now moving through Congress.
The Pentagon has warned for years that the newest missiles developed by China and Russia are so advanced that updated countermeasures are necessary. Golden Dome’s added satellites and interceptors — where the bulk of the program’s cost is — would be focused on stopping those advanced missiles early on or in the middle of their flight.
The space-based weapons envisioned for Golden Dome “represent new and emerging requirements for missions that have never before been accomplished by military space organizations,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, head of the US Space Force, told lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday.
China and Russia have put offensive weapons in space, such as satellites with abilities to disable critical US satellites, which can make the US vulnerable to attack.
Last year, the US said Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it.
Trump said Tuesday that he had not yet spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Golden Dome program, “but at the right time, we will,” he told reporters at the White House.
There is no money for the project yet, and Golden Dome overall is “still in the conceptual stage,” newly confirmed Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told senators during a hearing Tuesday.
While the president picked the concept he wanted, the Pentagon is still developing the requirements that Golden Dome will need to meet — which is not the way new systems are normally developed.
The Pentagon and US Northern Command are still drafting what is known as an initial capabilities document, the US official said. That is how Northern Command, which is responsible for homeland defense, identifies what it will need the system to do.
The US already has many missile defense capabilities, such as the Patriot missile batteries that the US has provided to Ukraine to defend against incoming missiles as well as an array of satellites in orbit to detect missile launches. Some of those existing systems will be incorporated into Golden Dome.
Trump directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors in an executive order during the first week of his presidency.
Immigrant rights advocates claim US violated court order by deporting migrants to South Sudan
- The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston
BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates accused the Trump administration on Tuesday of deporting around a dozen migrants from countries including Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order and asked a judge to order their return.
The advocates made the request in a motion directed to a federal judge in Boston who had barred the Trump administration from swiftly deporting migrants to countries other than their own without first hearing any concerns they had that they might be tortured or persecuted if sent there.
Maritime security under threat from ‘emerging dangers,’ UN chief warns
- Houthi Red Sea campaign ‘increased tensions in an already volatile region’
- Antonio Guterres calls for three-point plan to address challenges
NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of rising threats to global maritime transport at a high-level Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
It follows almost two years of turmoil in the Red Sea, a vital shipping lane connecting global trade via the Suez Canal.
Yemen’s Houthi militia launched a campaign in late 2023 to prevent Israel-linked shipping from transiting the Red Sea, claiming to act in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The US responded with Operation Prosperity Guardian, a military campaign to target Houthi launch sites and infrastructure.
The EU contributed with EUNAVFOR Aspides, while Israel later responded to Houthi attacks with extensive strikes on Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and the Houthi-controlled port city of Hodeidah.
Tuesday’s Security Council meeting was chaired by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister.
Guterres told the meeting: “Without maritime security, there can be no global security.
“From time immemorial, maritime routes have bound the world together. They have long been the primary means for the trade and transport of not only people, goods and commodities, but also cultures and ideas.”
However, maritime spaces are “increasingly under strain” from traditional threats and “emerging dangers,” Guterres added.
He highlighted contested boundaries, the depletion of natural resources, conflict and crime as key issues affecting maritime security.
The first quarter of 2025 saw a “sharp upward reversal” in reported piracy and armed robbery at sea, Guterres said.
He highlighted the Houthi Red Sea campaign, warning it had “disrupted global trade and increased tensions in an already volatile region.”
Earlier this month, the US reached a ceasefire deal with the Houthis following mediation by Oman.
However, the militia and Israel continue to trade strikes.
Guterres called for three measures to improve global maritime security: Respect for international law; efforts to address the root causes of maritime insecurity; and partnerships involving “everyone with a stake in maritime spaces.”
The international legal framework for maritime security “is only as strong as states’ commitment” to its implementation, he said.
Globally, more must be done “to reduce the likelihood that desperate people will turn to crime and other activities that threaten maritime security,” he added.
Guterres said: “We must involve everyone with a stake in maritime spaces. From coastal communities to governments and regional groups. To shipping companies, flag registries, the fishing and extraction industries, insurers and port operators.
“Let’s take action to support and secure maritime spaces, and the communities and people counting on them.”
Indonesian gig drivers protest demanding lower app fees
- Motorbike and scooter drivers who form the backbone of Indonesia’s sprawling gig economy earn up to 150,000 rupiah ($10) a day
JAKARTA: Thousands of drivers from ride-hailing and food delivery apps protested in Indonesia on Tuesday, demanding a 10-percent cap on commission fees.
Hundreds of drivers gathered in the streets of the capital Jakarta, driving their motorbikes and waving flags.
Thousands more in Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya drove to the offices of ride-hailing apps GoJek and Grab, before rallying in front of the governor’s office, an AFP journalist saw.
“Many of our friends got into accidents on the road, died on the road because they have to chase their income,” Raden Igun Wicaksono, chairman of the driver’s union Garda Indonesia, told AFP.
“It’s about lives, not about business calculation.”
Drivers are also demanding the end of discounted fare programs and calling on lawmakers to meet with the drivers’ association and app companies.
Motorbike and scooter drivers who form the backbone of Indonesia’s sprawling gig economy earn up to 150,000 rupiah ($10) a day, but costs including app commissions and fuel eat into their income.
Gojek — which alongside Singapore’s Grab is among Asia’s most valuable startups — said it was committed to “supporting the long-term welfare of our driver partners.”
But lowering its 20-percent commission fee, which complied with regulations, was “not a viable solution,” according to Ade Mulya, head of public policy for Gojek’s parent company GoTo.
