Xavier Durand (Coface) : "Dans un environnement anxiogène, notre stratégie prend toute sa valeur "

Hello David.

We have quantified it because there is indeed a climate of uncertainty at an all-time high, which translates into caution among businesses to invest and caution among consumers when it comes to spending money. So we estimate that has created a half-point drop in global growth, which is not nothing. It's quite significant: growth in Europe remains weak at around 1.2% for 2025-2026, slightly higher in the US but below its potential at around 1%. Global growth is still driven by emerging markets. We have an economy where everyone is waiting to see what will happen before making major decisions.

We need to realize that before Trump, the US taxed imports from abroad at 2.5%. Today, it's almost ten times that, nearly 19%. Indeed, it's about seeing where the final blow lands, because there have been many announcements and what matters are the facts. We already know steel and aluminum are at 50%, automobiles at 25%, and everything from China entering the US is now at 42% on average. We're at the highest level since the 1930s, and we still don't have an answer for Europe. So many things are still suspended, but already this tariff increase will lead to more inflation in the US and lower global growth.

The worst is never certain. What is certain is that we have a paradigm shift, a challenge to the relatively free trade we've had for many years. This will require a partial, gradual reorganization of trade flows, because you can't change everything overnight. We are in a new era of tariffs. For example, tariff revenue in the US over six months was $100 billion, doubling in one year. That shows it's coming in, but it won't stem the growing budget deficit given the recently passed budget law. The scale of the issues is enormous. The world is changing. For businesses, the most important thing is uncertainty. It's hard to make industrial investment decisions today without knowing what will happen in the next five years, as these are long-term investments. It's hard for consumers to know what will happen tomorrow, so people tend to hoard, organize resilience in their supply chains, and come to us to find at least short-term solutions. That's the essence of our business: helping companies. If you can't forecast long-term, at least you need to manage the short term well—by taking care of your accounts, your risks, and avoiding short-term mistakes. That's why we exist.