The World Bank slashed its 2025 outlook for global and U.S. growth in the latest version of its bi-annual Global Economic Prospects report, released June 10.

The international lender now calls for global growth of 2.3% — which would trail the 2.8% of 2024 and down from the 2.7% predicted at the start of this year. Meanwhile, the group now expects U.S. growth of just 1.4% in 2025 — which would be half of what it had in 2024 and a downgrade from 2.3% forecasted in January.

The new forecasted global growth rate would be the slowest since 2008 aside from outright global recessions.

In an executive summary, the international lender cited “an escalation of trade barriers, persistent policy uncertainty, rising geopolitical tensions and an increased incidence of extreme climate events” as downside risks impacting its global forecast.

In a forward to the report, World Bank Chief Economist Indermit Gill said that the global economy has missed a “soft landing”.

“That moment has passed,” he wrote. “The world economy today is once more running into turbulence. Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep.”

On the U.S. front, the report detailed that investment spending is projected to be especially hard hit following the frontloading of imported goods earlier this year.

“Going forward, the supply of investment goods is anticipated to be disproportionately impacted by tariffs due to their high import content, at the same time as investment demand cools due to record-high uncertainty, the rise in financing costs and reduced domestic and external demand,” the report shares.

Looking further out, the World Bank expects U.S. growth to edge up to 1.6% in 2026. 

Globally, the group expects a tepid recovery in 2026. By 2027, global GDP growth is expected to average 2.5% in the 2020s, the World Bank said — which would be the slowest pace of any decade since the 1960s.