IMF Blasts US for Risky Deficits, Debt, Trade and Bank Rules (1)

The International Monetary Fund said Thursday that the US is running deficits that are too big and is weighed down by too much debt, and it warned of dangers from increasingly aggressive trade policies.

While calling the world’s largest economy “robust, dynamic and adaptable,” the fund leveled unusually harsh criticism toward the US, its biggest shareholder. It also slightly downgraded its estimate for growth this year to 2.6%, down 0.1 percentage point from its April forecast.

“The fiscal deficit is too large, creating a sustained upward trajectory for the public debt-GDP ratio,” the IMF staff said in a summary of ...