German finance minister says trade tensions bring undoubted risk of recession

Germany is at risk of another recession as a result of trade tensions sparked by tariffs under US President Donald Trump, Finance Minister Joerg Kukies said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

“A possible trade conflict increases the risk of recession, there is no question about that,” Kukies told the Deutschlandfunk broadcaster.

Already smarting from two consecutive years of recession, a third contraction in 2025 would mark a historically long down-run for Europe’s largest economy.

German economic institutes are to revise down their forecast for 2025 to just 0.1 percent growth, under projections that do not factor in the latest tariffs under Trump, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.