IMF says will have to see how U.S. trade deals are unfolding

The International Monetary Fund said it was carefully looking at the details of the trade agreements the United States has struck with Japan and the European Union in recent days to assess their economic impact.

"We will have to see how things are unfolding," said Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Chief Economist and Director of the IMF's Research Department, adding that the trade agreements announced thus far were high-level deals that still needed to be fleshed out.

"We'll have to see whether these deals are sticking, whether they're unraveled, whether they're followed by other changes in trade policy."


However, tariffs agreed so far in those deals were similar to the effective U.S. tariff rate on which the IMF based its latest assumptions in its update to the World Economic Outlook published on Tuesday, Gourinchas added.