Increased trade policy uncertainty and prospects of new tariffs could weigh on global trade in the medium term, even though for the first few months of 2025 it is expected to be steady, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said Wednesday. However, it hasn’t made any revision of its forecast of growth in global merchandse trade volume for 2025, from 3% seen in last October
According to the Goods Trade Barometer of the global trade regulating body, global goods trade appeared to remain steady in the fourth quarter of 2024 and looked set to continue growing in the first months of 2025.
“Riing trade policy uncertainty could have temporarily boosted trade (in last quarter of 2024) as businesses and consumers front load imports ahead of potential measures, possibly reducing demand later in the year,” the WTO said
Since assuming office US President Donald Trump has inaugurated a global trade war. With duty increases gradually being implemented, the countries impacted by these duties have retaliated.
In the third quarter of 2024 – the latest period for which WTO data is available – the volume of world merchandise trade continued to recover from the trade slump of 2023, growing 3.3% year‐on‐year. For 2025, the WTO had forecast a 3% growth in world trade volume.
Developments in the first three quarters were in line with the WTO’s trade forecast which predicted trade volume growth of 2.7% for the whole of 2024. “Although the global average has remained steady, there have been some significant regional disparities in goods trade growth. In particular, European exports and imports have been much weaker than anticipated while Asia’s exports and North America’s imports have exceeded expectations,” the WTO said.
