However, since the start of the year an apparent progress in the US-China negotiations has been made as the rhetoric around them has appeared to soften, but the outcome is still hard to predict. 2.2 Uncertainty over global monetary policies  Last year global monetary policy stances diverged.
In another period, the mid-1970s and early 1980s, low interest rates also triggered an extreme swing in the economic cycle. The real fed funds rate was kept negative for a span of nearly three years, from November 1974 to September 1977. The low interest rate environment led initially to a drop in the unemployment rate.