Global consumer confidence has gone up for five weeks in a row, but the good news hides a massive split between different countries. While a four-week average tracking global confidence rose slightly to 94.8, deep economic divides are opening up across the planet. Some nations are hitting near-record highs, while others are crashing down.
China is completely driving the global recovery. Its confidence score averaged 165.7. Because China gets most of its oil via land pipelines from Russia, it was not affected by the shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz after Iran started its war. In fact, Chinese confidence is up 9.3% since the war began.
The United States is facing the exact opposite reality. U.S. confidence fell to an average of 87.9, mostly because wealthier adults are starting to feel the pinch. Gas prices in America have hit their highest levels since 2022. According to data from Morning Consult, 50.3% of American adults say high prices are forcing them to change how they shop, causing price sensitivity to hit an all-time high. Overall, U.S. confidence dropped 6.7% since the start of March.
The split is so wide that 11 out of the 43 tracked countries are now more than 10% below their pre-war levels from January. Experts are calling this “The Great Divergence.”
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Canada is showing a few signs of life, rising 3.0 points. In South America, Colombia is near an all-time high at 124.0. Brazil also managed to bounce back to 1.3 points above pre-war levels by exporting goods. However, Argentina and Chile took massive hits from the war, dropping 16.9 and 20.4 points.
Europe is breaking apart, too. Spain and Italy are slowly recovering, and France is staying flat. Germany, however, is suffering the worst drop among major European markets, crashing 22% below its January level.
Surprisingly, making money from oil hasn’t saved Middle Eastern countries from the stress. Saudi Arabia dropped by 2.8 points, and the UAE fell by 10.5 points. High oil prices are making people worry that global demand for goods will shrink, hurting families even in wealthy oil countries. Norway also saw a 4.7% drop.
In Asia, South Korea managed a major comeback, climbing 1.1 points above its pre-war level after a sharp 9.8-point drop. But Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia are hurt by higher shipping costs and lower demand for their exports.
This massive 16-point gap between rising confidence in China and falling confidence in the U.S. means global businesses and investors have to treat the two regions like completely different worlds. Companies making money in China are dealing with happy shoppers, while companies relying on American or European shoppers are facing customers under major financial pressure.
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