IMF Warns Global Imbalances Are Worsening: Tariffs May Fail or Push Capital Flows Toward Bitcoin and Stablecoins

Gate News update. A new study by the International Monetary Fund states that tariffs cannot effectively ease global trade deficits; their impact is limited and not sustained. At the same time, global current account imbalances are widening, viewed as an important signal of rising potential financial risk.

The report, led by economists Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and Christian Mummssen, emphasizes that the macro variables that truly affect trade imbalances are still things like savings, investment, and fiscal policy—rather than tariffs or industrial interventions. The report notes that most tariffs are viewed by markets as long-term measures, which are likely to trigger retaliatory policies and thereby weaken their adjustment effect, while the structure of the current account is hard to change in a substantive way.

More importantly, the IMF warns that as global imbalances widen, it often signals either a reversal in capital flows or an increased risk of financial crises. Against this backdrop, the market may undergo structural adjustments. For the crypto market, this implies three potential paths: first, pressure on USD credit, with capital or part of it potentially shifting toward value-storing assets such as Bitcoin; second, rising cross-border trade uncertainty, leading businesses to use stablecoins for settlement more often to reduce friction; third, increased demand for safe havens, with the share of allocations to non-correlated assets likely to rise.

Currently, the United States’ fiscal deficit combined with a high-consumption spending structure makes global capital flows even more sensitive. The IMF calls on countries to implement “synchronized adjustments,” but real-world execution is difficult. If coordination fails, the market will be forced to price risk on its own.

Within this macro framework, the role of crypto assets is changing: they are gradually shifting from high-volatility risk assets toward tools for hedging the failure of policy measures and systemic uncertainty, and their allocation logic may be further strengthened.