Publications

Amid rising global uncertainty, trade tensions with the United States are resurfacing. As background, in 2018 the EU responded to Trump's tariffs by imposing levies of 25% on more than 180 products. This had a lasting effect on the pattern of Spanish imports, although the overall economic impact remained limited.

In May 2025, remittances to Mexico fell 4.6 % compared to the same month of the last year, to 5,360 million dollars. In contrast, remittances to Guatemala (2,281 million, +15.2 %), Honduras (1,055 million, +19.1 %), and El Salvador (899 million, +17.7 %) reached record highs.

Typically, short-term changes in geopolitical risk are monitored by high-frequency, news-based indices, which usually revert to the mean after some time. We complement those measures by developing new structural geopolitical risk (SGR) and economic fragmentation (SEF) country-specific indices since the 1960s.

The impact of geopolitical risks on economic phenomena is undeniable, and demand for research in this field is steadily increasing from governments, regulators, the private sector and multilateral institutions.

In recent months, the main feature of the global economic outlook has been the increase in uncertainty. The erratic tariff policy of the American administration and the lack of precedent for recent protectionist shocks have made reading the economic outlook complicated.

BBVA Research’s forecasts released this past week point to slight changes in GDP growth expectations, despite the fact that the economy has been exposed to significant shocks.

We raise the China GDP forecast based on the recent China-US Geneva Agreement and the 3nd round stimulus. We also analyze the recent economic development and the policy outlook.

The tariff hikes being pushed through by the United States since the start of Donald Trump's second term are genuinely unprecedented. Not in the last century have we witnessed such a sudden and erratic shift in trade policiy implemented within such a short space of time.