S&P Global’s current forecasts imply global economic conditions this year will be similar to that in 2025—remarkable resilience of economic activity and ?nancial markets, i.e., a continuation of near-potential real gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
Continued resilience of growth to geopolitical developments is, however, not guaranteed.
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One escalating concern is that developments that S&P Global would have previously considered to be ‘tail’ risks—for example, US-European Union (EU) tensions over Greenland—have become more probable. Another is the US administration introducing another layer of tariffs to those ‘doing business’ with Iran.
At the same time, the artificial intelligence (AI)-spending-related boost to growth could be giving a misleading impression of how resilient economic conditions would be to additional adverse shocks, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in a note.
The near-term prospects for commodity and ?nancial markets have become more uncertain accordingly and, in the case of the recent rise in crude oil prices, run counter to some key aspects of S&P Global’s predictions for 2026—namely, supply-driven oil price declines leaning down on in?ation rates, extending monetary policy easing cycles and supporting growth.
While our forecasts did not change materially in January’s update, S&P Global continues to expect slowdowns in China, India, Canada, Brazil, the eurozone and the United Kingdom this year.
National growth prospects differ, as do some of their drivers, although there are some common factors contributing to the expected slowdowns. Most are trade-related, including unfavourable base effects stemming from 2025’s tariff front-loading.
S&P Global’s purchasing managers indices (PMIs) have already shown some loss of momentum. While there were ups and downs over the course of 2025, the global composite index generally remained indicative of near-potential global real GDP growth.
Output expectations have been persistently weak, although this was not exerting a signi?cant drag on current activity. December 2025’s PMI data showed some tentative signs that this might be changing for the worse.
