You know what words you never want to hear when somebody's talking about the global economy?

Major negative shock to growth. Those are the words you never want to hear. From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdahl.

It is Tuesday, today, the 22nd of April.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

Those words in question, a major negative shock to growth, come to us courtesy of the International Monetary Fund, which released its semi-annual world economic outlook

this morning. The shock in question, of course, is the tariffs on which President Trump

is betting this economy. And what happens in the United States definitely does not stay in the United States.

The IMF says the global economy is going to grow almost a full percentage point slower this year.

2.8% would be global growth. Then it guessed just this past January. The tariffs, the IMF says, add complexity and fluidity. Those are their words to the current

moment. So there is that. On the other hand, and from the marketplace desk of that which cannot

continue won't, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is being widely reported as having said to a private

gathering of Wall Street types, speaking of the U.S. China impasse.

No one thinks the current status quo is sustainable. The Treasury sector is reported to have said,

and he predicted de-escalation. Putting, proof, will be in. Of course, tariffs aren't the only

thing weighing on this economy. The Trump administration's rapid unscheduled

disassembly of the federal workforce is now showing up on corporate balance sheets. Verizon announced

earnings this morning, and it said it lost 289,000 monthly phone subscribers in the first quarter.

That is more than double the decline from the same period a year ago, and Verizon attributed

the drop in part to a loss of business from the federal government.

Marketplace is Stephanie Hughes.

Has that one.

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