(Bloomberg) — Consumer spending was weaker than expected again in February while a key inflation metric picked up, in a double whammy for the US economy before the brunt of tariffs.
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Markets and world leaders are all bracing for next week, when President Donald Trump has planned a rollout of tariffs dubbed “Liberation Day” on April 2. He’s already imposed some levies on Canada, whose economic growth came to a halt in February after a solid start to the year.
Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy, markets and geopolitics:
US & Canada
Inflation-adjusted consumer spending edged up 0.1%, on the low end of economists’ estimates, after a slump January that analysts mostly blamed on bad weather. The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy items, was up 2.8% from last year, remaining stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Trump appeared to invent a new weapon of economic statecraft on Monday by threatening what he dubbed “secondary tariffs” on countries that buy oil from Venezuela to choke off its oil trade with other nations. The novel approach adds to a growing list of weapons that Trump has been eager to deploy as part of a push to use America’s economic clout as leverage in achieving its foreign and domestic policy goals.
The stock market volatility set off by concerns over Trump’s rapidly shifting trade war threatens one of the primary growth engines of the US economy: spending by high-income earners.
Trump’s administration has already imposed tariffs on some products the US buys from Canada, and further levies expected in coming weeks — if sustained — will likely plunge the economy into recession. With Canada’s retaliatory tariffs raising prices for imports, there’s risk that inflation may rise above the bank’s upper target range of 3%.
Europe
UK retail sales have risen strongly since the start of 2025 in a sign that households are beginning to spend the pot of savings they built up last year. Sales of household goods climbing almost 7%, the largest increase since April 2021. Jewelery, watches and clothes also saw a bounceback in demand.
German business optimism rose to the highest level since June 2024 as Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz readies hundreds of billions of euros of spending to modernize the economy. The prospects for Europe’s biggest economy have improved after last month’s election and Merz’s subsequent pledge to shore up Germany’s aging infrastructure and military.
