Citing “a substantial rise in trade barriers’’ but without mentioning Trump by name, the 189-country lender predicted that the U.S. economy – the world’s largest – would grow half as fast (1.4%) this year as it did in 2024 (2.8%). That marked a downgrade from the 2.3% U.S. growth it had forecast back for 2025 back in January.

The head of one of the nation’s largest banks says the U.S. economy may be slowing — and that could hit local households and businesses hard in the months ahead. “I think there’s a chance real numbers will deteriorate soon,

The world’s largest economy is expected to grow by just 1.4% in 2025, a sharp deceleration from the 2.8% expansion recorded in 2024.