The World Trade Organization says US tariffs have triggered a crisis that will have serious knock-on effects for the global economy. It's now projecting that the volume of worldwide trade in goods this year will fall.



WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Wednesday: "We've seen that the trade concerns can have negative spillovers into financial markets, into other broader areas of the economy. But I'm also very concerned about impact on poor countries, and we really need to think about that."



The WTO says based on current tariffs, global merchandise trade will slump by 0.2 percent in 2025.



That's a substantial downgrade from its previous forecast. In October, the WTO said it expected 3-percent growth.



Worse still, it warns that if the US goes ahead with its so-called reciprocal tariffs, trade will fall even further by 1.5 percent.



The change is largely due to new projections for North America, which is now expected to see a decline of more than 12 percent in exports and nearly 10 percent for imports.



The WTO says the trade war between the US and China is likely to push the Asian power toward other markets. Chinese exports to regions excluding North America are forecast to grow between 4 and 9 percent.



The US rocked markets earlier this month by hitting countries around the world with heavy duties that it called "reciprocal" tariffs. It fueled more uncertainty by swiftly declaring it would suspend them on all countries except China for 90 days.