The ripping up of the trade rule book caused by President Trump’s tariffs will slow economic growth in some countries, but not cause a global recession, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

There will be “notable” markdowns to growth forecasts, according to the financial organisation’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva in her curtain raiser speech at the IMF’s spring meeting in Washington.

Some nations will also see higher inflation as a result of the taxes Mr Trump has placed on imports to the US. At the same time, the European Central Bank said it anticipated less inflation from tariffs.

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Earlier this month, a flat rate of 10% was placed on all imports, while additional levies from certain countries were paused for 90 days. Car parts, steel and aluminium are, however, still subject to a 25% tax when they arrive in the US.

This has meant the “reboot of the global trading system”, Ms Georgieva said. “Trade policy uncertainty is literally off the charts.”

The confusion over why nations were slapped with their specific tariffs, the stop-start nature of the taxes, and the rapid escalation of the tit-for-tat levies between the US and China sparked uncertainty and financial market turbulence.

“The longer uncertainty persists, the larger the cost,” Ms Georgieva cautioned.

“Unusual” activity in currency and government debt markets – as investors sold off dollars and US government debt – “should be taken as a warning”, she added.

“Everyone suffers if financial conditions worsen.”

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These challenges are being borne out from a “weaker starting position” as public debt levels are much higher in recent years due to spending during the COVID-19 pandemic and higher interest rates, which increased the cost of borrowing.

The trade tensions are “to a large extent” a result of “an erosion of trust”, Ms Georgieva said.

This erosion, coupled with jobs moving overseas, and concerns over national security and domestic production, has left us in a world where “industry gets more attention than the service sector” and “where national interests tower over global concerns,” she added.

Annual profits at the UK’s second biggest supermarket, Sainsbury’s, have reached £1bn.

The supermarket chain reported that sales and profits grew over the year to March.

It also comes after Sainsbury’s announced in January plans to close of all of its in-store cafes and the loss of 3,000 jobs.

But the high profits are not expected to increase, according to Sainsbury’s, which warned of heightened competition as a supermarket price war heats up.

Tesco too warned of “intensification of competition” last week, as Asda’s executive chairman earlier this year committed to foregoing profits in favour of price cuts.

Sainsbury’s said it had spent £1bn lowering prices, leading to a “record-breaking year in grocery”, its highest market share gain in more than a decade, as more people chose Sainsbury’s for their main shop.

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It’s the second most popular supermarket with market share of ahead of Asda but below Tesco, according to latest industry figures from market research company Kantar.

In the same year, the supermarket announced plans to cut more than 3,000 jobs and the closure of its remaining 61 in-store cafes as well as hot food, patisserie, and pizza counters, to save money in a “challenging cost environment”.

This financial year, profits are forecast to be around £1bn again, in line with the £1.036bn in retail underlying operating profit announced today for the year ended in March.

The grocer has been a vocal critic of the government’s increase in employer national insurance contributions and said in January it would incur an additional £140m as a result of the hike.

Higher national insurance bills are not captured by the annual results published on Thursday, as they only took effect in April, outside of the 2024 to 2025 financial year.

Supermarkets gearing up for a price war and not bulking profits further could be good news for prices of shelves, according to online investment planner AJ Bell’s investment director Russ Mould.

“The main winners in a price war would ultimately be shoppers”, he said.

“Like Tesco, Sainsbury’s wants to equip itself to protect its competitive position, hence its guidance for flat profit in the coming year as it looks to offer customers value for money.”

There has been, however, a warning from Sainsbury’s that higher national insurance contributions will bring costs up for consumers.

News shops are planned in “key target locations”, Sainsbury’s results said, which, along with further openings, “provides a unique opportunity to drive further market share gains”.

US stock markets suffered more significant losses on Wednesday, with stocks in leading AI chipmakers slumping after firms said new restrictions on exports to China would cost them billions.

Nvidia fell 6.87% – and was at one point down 10% – after revealing it would now need a US government licence to sell its H20 chip.

Rival chipmaker AMD slumped 7.35% after it predicted a $800m (£604m) charge due to its MI308 also needing a licence.

Dutch firm ASML, which makes hardware essential to chip manufacturing, fell more than 5% after it missed order expectations and said US tariffs created uncertainty.

The losses filtered into the tech-dominated Nasdaq index, which recovered slightly to end 3% down, while the larger S&P 500 fell 2.2%.

Such losses would have been among the worst in years were it not for the turmoil over recent weeks.

It comes as China remains the focus of Donald Trump’s tariff regime, with both countries imposing tit-for-tat charges of over 100% on imports.

The US commerce department said in a statement it was “committed to acting on the president’s directive to safeguard our national and economic security”.

Nvidia’s bespoke China chip is already deliberately less powerful than products sold elsewhere after intervention from the previous Biden administration.

However, the Trump government is worried the H20 and others could still be used to build a supercomputer in China, threatening national security and US dominance in AI.

Nvidia said the move would cost it around $5.5bn (£4.1bn) and the licensing requirement would be in place for the “indefinite future”.

Nvidia’s recently announced a $500bn (£378bn) investment to build infrastructure in America – something Mr Trump heralded as a victory in his mission to boost US manufacturing.

However, it appears to have been too little to stave off the new restrictions.

Pressure has also come from the Democrats, with senator Elizabeth Warren writing to the commerce secretary and urging him to limit chip sales to China.

Meanwhile, the head of US central bank also warned on Wednesday that US tariffs could slow the economy and raise inflation more than expected.

Jerome Powell said the bank would need more time to decide on lowering interest rates.

“The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated,” he said.

“The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”

Predictions of a recession in the US have risen significantly since the president revealed details of the import taxes a few weeks ago.

However, he subsequently paused the higher rates for 90 days to allow for negotiations.