Washington. An unexpectedly sturdy world economy is likely to shrug off President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies this year, helped in part by a surge in artificial intelligence investment across North America and Asia, the International Monetary Fund said in a report released Monday.

The 191-nation lending institution now expects global economic growth of 3.3% this year, unchanged from 2025 but higher than the 3.1% it had forecast for 2026 in October.

The global economy “continues to show notable resilience despite significant US-led trade disruptions and heightened uncertainty,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and colleague Tobias Adrian wrote in a blog post accompanying the latest update to the fund’s World Economic Outlook.

The US economy, benefiting from the strongest pace of technology investment since 2001, is projected to grow 2.4% this year — an upgrade from the IMF’s October forecast and above its projected 2025 growth of 2.1%.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, is expected to expand by 4.5%, up from the 4.2% growth the IMF projected in October. The improvement partly reflects a trade truce with the United States that has reduced American tariffs on Chinese exports.

India, which has supplanted China as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, is forecast to see growth ease from 7.3% last year — boosted by an unexpectedly strong second half — to a still-robust 6.4% in 2026.

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