International trade has fostered growth, job creation, and resilience in both the U.S. and abroad. However, there is broad recognition that more needs to be done to increase supply chain resilience, to eliminate the various policy distortions—both in the U.S. and other countries—that have led to high external imbalances, and to ensure that the benefits of trade are broadly shared across society, IMF said its concluding statement of the 2026 Article IV Mission.
A Concluding Statement describes the preliminary findings of IMF staff at the end of an official staff visit (or ‘mission’), in most cases to a member country.
“Higher tariffs create costs by distorting the allocation of productive resources, disrupting global supply chains, and undermining the benefits of global trade,” it said.
The U.S. should work constructively with its trading partners to address concerns over unfair trade practices and agree on a coordinated reduction in trade restrictions and industrial policy distortions that have negative cross-border effects, IMF said.
Where trade and investment measures (including tariffs and export controls) are put in place for national security reasons, such policies should be applied narrowly, so as to minimize their negative effects at both home and abroad, it added.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters that over the longer horizon, the tariffs distort resource allocation, and they wait on productivity.
And this is the reason why we encourage the U.S. to work constructively with its trading partners to address these mutual concerns and agree on a coordinated reduction in distortions and trade restrictions that are adding to these global imbalances, she said.
Georgieva clarified that the concluding statement was prepared prior to the US Supreme Court verdict striking down the sweeping tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
Post the Supreme Court verdict, the Trump administration said it would look to levy tariffs through other routes.
“We have not yet been able to assess what would be the impact of moving towards a different legal foundation and therefore different tariffs. We don’t know what exactly the administration’s plans are. We don’t know how the partners of the U.S. would react. More likely than not, there would be some continuity, Georgieva said.
“Trade is like water. You put an obstacle, it goes around it, and it is for a reason, because trade helps us to have globally better allocation of resources and as a result get better outcomes for people. So, we expect to see that there would be more clarity given by the administration, and we would see in our analysis, in the report a couple of weeks from now, and at the Spring Meetings, more to say,” she said.
For more details read here: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2026/02/25/cs-02252026-united-states-of-america-staff-concluding-statement-of-the-2026-article-iv-mission
