Guangzhou (JLC), October 24, 2025--The World Trade Organization (WTO) has recently sharply cut its growth forecast for global merchandise trade for 2026 to 0.5%, a significant downgrade from its August prediction of 1.8%, according to the latest Global Trade Outlook and Statistics report.
The report cited trade restrictions and uncertainty over tariff policies as key factors creating downward risks for trade in the second half of 2025 and in 2026.
Services trade is also expected to be indirectly impacted by tariffs. The report forecasts that global services export growth will slow to 4.6% in 2025 from 6.8% in 2024, and ease further to 4.4% in 2026.
In the report, the WTO revised its 2025 global goods trade growth forecast upward to 2.4% from the 0.9% projected in August.
According to the report, In the first half of 2025, global merchandise trade volume rose 4.9% year-on-year, while the value of global goods trade in U.S. dollars increased by 6%.
This growth was fueled by North American countries, like the United States and Canada, front-loading imports to hedge against anticipated tariffs, coupled with improved macroeconomic conditions and a surge in demand for artificial intelligence-related goods.
“Global trade has demonstrated some resilience, thanks to stability offered by the multilateral trading system and members' appropriate responses to tariff changes, despite strong headwinds from unilateral tariffs and trade policy uncertainty.” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, WTO Director-General, said at a press conference in early October.
