The OECD doesn’t love Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“[T]oday’s policy uncertainty is weakening trade and investment, diminishing consumer and business confidence and curbing growth prospects,” Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said Tuesday, in the press release accompanying the cooperative’s new global outlook which clocked in at 280 pages and featured 359 mentions of the word “tariff.” So, more than one tariff mention for every page.

“Governments need to engage with each other to address any issues in the global trading system positively and constructively through dialogue,” Cormann went on, imploring world leaders to “keep markets open and preserv[e] the economic benefits of rules-based global trade.”

The figure above gives you a sense of just how impactful Trump’s trade policy could be. I emphasize “could” because no one — least of all Trump — actually knows how this is going to pan out.

A quick bit of trivia: Cormann holds the record for longest-serving Australian finance minister, having occupied the post for seven years from 2013 to 2020.

During the Biden administration, the Republican-controlled House Ways & Means Committee twice wrote to Cormann in his capacity as OECD secretary to accuse the organization of “colluding” with Joe and Kamala Harris to “surrender American sovereignty.” The GOP was aggrieved by the Global Tax Deal, which the second Trump administration lambasted in January for ceding “extraterritorial jurisdiction over American income.”

I bring that up because the linked memo described the OECD’s Global Tax Deal as a “discriminatory foreign tax practice” and instructed Scott Bessent to “investigate whether any foreign countries… have any tax rules in place, or are likely to put tax rules in place, that are extraterritorial or disproportionately affect American companies, and develop… a list of options for protective measures or other actions the US should adopt or take in response.” If that sounds to you like an allusion to provisions such as those contained in Section 899 — the measure in the Republican tax bill which has Wall Street on edge — you’re not wrong.

Anyway, the OECD cut its outlook for global growth Tuesday primarily due to trade frictions. The slowdown’s expected to be “most concentrated” in the US, followed by Canada, Mexico and China. Those countries have something in common — namely, they’re embroiled in Trump’s militant mercantilism.

The figure above summarizes global exposure to trade with the US. Canada and Mexico are at Trump’s mercy.

The OECD expects US growth to slow from 2.8% last year to 1.6% in 2025. In China, growth’s seen at 4.7%, down from 5% last year (and try not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire world continuing to accept Beijing’s contention that it can manage real growth for an $18 trillion economy precisely to a target set nine months in advance.)

With apologies to all the good people who collaborated on the OECD’s latest tome, there’s no utility in poring over their outlook. No one in market circles cares, the projections are subject to so much uncertainty in 2025 they’re more or less useless and, like a global economy in thrall to “Tariff Man,” the forecasts aren’t tradable.