The World Trade Organization (WTO) has sharply raised its projections for global trade growth in 2025. They have significantly raised their expectations to an astounding growth of 2.4%. That’s a big jump from the earlier baseline estimate of 0.9%. The organization has sounded the alarm on a deteriorating forecast for global trade growth in 2026. It now only expects this growth to dip down to just 0.5%.
WTO’s new gloomy outlook is wrapped up in its report, “Global Trade Outlook and Statistics,” released earlier this week. The report shows that volume will continue to increase for trade in 2025. This growth will be driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related products. This demand has driven almost half of the total trade growth during the first half of this year. At the same time, AI-related spending has jumped by 20% over last year at this time.
Additionally, solid growth in developing countries has been an important anchor to the global trade slowdown. The WTO noted that the resilience of global trade in 2025 is attributed to “countries’ measured response to tariff changes in general, the growth potential of AI, as well as increased trade among the rest of the world — particularly among emerging economies.”
Looking forward, global services exports growth is projected to continue to slow. Further, it is to decrease from 6.8% in 2024 to 4.6% in 2025, and continue to decrease to 4.4% in 2026. This expected slowdown is in line with the broader economy and hints at the difficulties in keeping the pace going across sectors.
As Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, has made clear, building trade resilience will require starting from a rules-based multilateral trading system. She stated, “Trade resilience in 2025 is thanks in no small part to the stability provided by the rules-based multilateral trading system. Yet complacency is not an option.” This assertion is a reminder that we can’t take the expansion for granted and must remain alert and act proactively to keep trade growing.
The global trade environment is characterized by a unique blend of uncertainty, in no small part due to the disruptions of today. Okonjo-Iweala remarked, “Today’s disruptions to the global trade system are a call to action for nations to reimagine trade and together lay a stronger foundation that delivers greater prosperity for people everywhere.” This call reflects a growing recognition of the need for collaborative efforts among nations to navigate challenges and enhance economic resilience.
The WTO showed how rapid trade growth has been throughout the digital value chain. This boom extends to the upstream materials such as raw silicon and specialty gases, to the downstream devices powering today’s cloud platforms and AI applications. This increased source diversity adds to the general stability and growth of global markets.
Despite the optimistic outlook for 2025, the WTO cautioned that trade growth is expected to slow in 2026 as “the global economy cools and as the full impact of higher tariffs is finally felt for a full year.” This short commentary highlights some of these potential headwinds that may soon dampen the exciting momentum behind international commerce.