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What does the world market need?

· Helfen statt Blockieren editorial team

World trade is growing despite tariffs, sanctions and war in the Gulf: according to UNCTAD it reached 35 trillion US dollars in 2025, and the WTO expects merchandise volumes to rise by 3.9 percent in 2026. At the same time, global uncertainty is higher than at any point since measurement began. What the world market needs now is fairly clear from the data: rules that hold, open routes for raw materials, money that arrives, and investment that does not flow only to rich countries.

$35 tnworld trade in goods and services in 2025, a recordUNCTAD, 9 Oct 2026
+3.9%merchandise trade volume in 2026, forecastWTO, October 2026
72%of goods trade still takes place on WTO termsWTO Director-General, October 2026
296uncertainty index 2026, average 1990 to 2019 = 100World Uncertainty Index

Trade is growing, but lopsidedly

In October 2026 the WTO raised its forecast sharply: the volume of merchandise trade grew by 4.2 percent in 2025 and is expected to grow by 3.9 percent in 2026 and 4.1 percent in 2027. In March it had still expected 1.9 percent for 2026. The reason is narrow: goods for artificial intelligence, meaning chips, servers and components, accounted for 14.8 percent of merchandise trade in the first half of 2026 and for about 47 percent of its growth. Ten economies account for some 85 percent of these exports. Those who do not make such goods gain little from the upswing.

The geographical picture is uneven too. According to the WTO, Asia’s exports grow by 9.9 percent in 2026, Europe’s stagnate (minus 0.1 percent), and those of the Middle East collapse by 17.2 percent because the Strait of Hormuz was barely passable for months. Trade between the United States and China has fallen by more than a fifth since 2024, according to UNCTAD; US imports from China fell by 29 percent in 2025, and China’s share of US imports dropped from 13.8 to 9.3 percent (WTO).

Where merchandise trade grows in 2026 and where it shrinks

Export volume by region, change on 2025 in percent, WTO forecast of October 2026. World: +3.9 percent.

RegionExport volume 2026
Asia+9.9%
North America+5.7%
Africa+5.6%
South America+3.4%
Europe−0.1%
CIS−3.9%
Middle East−17.2%

Source: WTO, Global Trade Outlook and Statistics, update October 2026, regional table.

Over the long run, integration has stalled: according to the World Bank, world trade was equivalent to 60.3 percent of world output in 2008 and 56.7 percent in 2024. Globalisation has not been reversed, but for almost two decades it has not grown faster than the economy itself.

The biggest obstacle: uncertainty

Firms can plan around high tariffs; they struggle with changing ones. The World Uncertainty Index, which analyses country reports from 143 states, averaged 294 in 2025 and 296 in the first three quarters of 2026, taking the 1990 to 2019 average as 100. It has never been this high since the series began, not even during the pandemic (2020: 173). A second gauge, the Federal Reserve’s trade policy uncertainty index, which counts articles in seven major US newspapers, averaged 538 in 2025; in 2010 to 2014 it was mostly between 24 and 30. For 2026 it shows 253 up to October, less than in 2025 but still a multiple of earlier years.

Uncertainty in the world economy, 1995 to 2026

World Uncertainty Index, global average of 143 countries, annual mean; average 1990 to 2019 = 100. 2026: first three quarters.

YearIndex
199565
199672
199767
199886
199975
200077
200191
200289
2003104
200487
200591
200689
200786
200884
200988
201096
2011112
2012143
2013143
2014126
2015149
2016176
2017154
2018126
2019169
2020173
2021138
2022150
2023132
2024112
2025294
2026 (three quarters)296

Source: Ahir, Bloom and Furceri, World Uncertainty Index, via FRED (WUIGLOBALSMPAVG), accessed 3 Nov 2026. Annual means and rescaling: Helfen statt Blockieren, daten/ergebnis_wui_jahr.csv.

The IMF described the situation in similar terms in April 2026: uncertainty is below the peaks of 2025 but still “historically” high. Tariff rates themselves have come down again. The World Bank estimates the average effective US tariff rate in June 2026 at about 12 percent, after about 14 percent at the start of the year; the reason was the Supreme Court ruling of February 2026 against tariffs based on the emergency powers law. How many new barriers are added worldwide is counted by Global Trade Alert; the figures are on the page Economic bloc against economic bloc.

What the world market needs

Rules that hold

In October 2026 WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called the situation the worst disruption to trade in 80 years, and added a finding that is often overlooked: 72 percent of goods trade still takes place on WTO terms. So the rules still hold. Their enforcement does not: since December 2019 the WTO Appellate Body has lacked the three members it needs, because the United States blocks new appointments. A party that loses a dispute can appeal “into the void” and so stall the ruling. As a stopgap, the EU and other members set up an interim appeal arrangement in 2020 (MPIA); according to figures that Wikipedia attributes to Singapore’s foreign ministry, it had 59 of the 166 WTO members in April 2026. The United States is not part of it.

Regional agreements are growing in parallel. According to the World Bank, their number rose from slightly more than 300 in 2020 to nearly 400; they now cover 60 percent of world trade, against 40 percent in 1990. That is opening, but in groups, and whoever belongs to no group stays outside.

Open routes for raw materials

Without cobalt, graphite, manganese and rare earths, neither batteries nor wind turbines nor chip plants can run. The OECD has counted export restrictions on critical raw materials since 2009: by 2024 they had increased roughly fivefold. On average in 2022 to 2024, 16 percent of world trade in these materials was subject to a restriction: 67 percent for cobalt, 66 percent for manganese, 47 percent for natural graphite and 45 percent for rare earths. How China has expanded and partly suspended its controls since 2023 is described in the magazine chapter on blockades of the world economy.

Money that arrives

Trade needs finance. The Asian Development Bank puts the trade finance gap in 2025 at 2.5 trillion US dollars, about a tenth of world trade; 41 percent of applications from small and medium-sized firms were rejected. What this means for firms and why correspondent banks are withdrawing is covered in the analysis What does business need?.

Investment for every region

Foreign direct investment rose by 6 percent to 1.6 trillion US dollars in 2025, according to UNCTAD, but unevenly: plus 11 percent into developed economies, plus 2 percent into developing economies, minus 26 percent into Africa, to 70 billion US dollars (after an exceptional 2024). UNCTAD names investment screening and supply chain conditions as barriers that block developing countries from entering new industries.

Jobs that depend on trade

According to the International Labour Organization, 465 million jobs worldwide depend on trade, more than half of them in Asia and the Pacific. The ILO writes that uncertainty about trade rules and supply chain bottlenecks are already weighing on wages, especially in South and Southeast Asia and in Europe.

Two readings

The case for calm

  • Trade is growing despite everything: merchandise volume up 4.2 percent in 2025 and 3.9 percent in 2026 (WTO). Firms have rerouted supply, which has softened the short-term damage from higher barriers (IMF, October 2026).
  • Trade law itself allows protection: Article XXI of the GATT permits measures a state considers necessary for its essential security interests. Export controls on arms and frontier technology rely on it.
  • Regional agreements open markets where the WTO stalls: nearly 400 agreements, 60 percent of world trade (World Bank).

The case against

  • The upswing rests on one group of goods; a setback in investment in artificial intelligence would hit trade hard (WTO, no figure given).
  • Duplicate supply chains are costly in the long run, even if they protect in the short run (IMF, October 2026).
  • Without a working Appellate Body, rules are worth less; small countries find it harder to enforce their rights than large ones.

Check the numbers: daten/abruf.py downloads the IMF, World Bank and uncertainty series; the extracts are in daten/ergebnis_*.csv, values taken from reports in daten/werte_berichte.csv.

This analysis is information, not legal, tax or investment advice. It reflects the view of the editorial team, presents arguments from both sides and makes no forecast of its own. “Helfen statt Blockieren” is non-partisan.

Sources

All online sources accessed on 3 November 2026. Secondary sources are marked; the figures there come from the publisher named.

To the situation report Blockades and the world economy 2026