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Eric Ng

Global trade has withstood the test of the Trump administration’s tariff hikes and is expected to continue to hold up in the next few years, albeit at a slower growth pace, according to new research.
Global trade volume would grow at an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent between this year and 2029, according to a special update of the DHL Global Connectedness Tracker published on Tuesday. The figure roughly matches the pace in the previous 10 years, but is slower than the 3.1 per cent rate forecast in January.
Amid front-loading of shipments in advance of the US tariff increases, international trade in the year’s first half grew at the fastest rate in any half-year period since 2010, excluding the Covid-19 pandemic rebound. However, growth was expected to slow from 3.2 per cent this year to 1.6 per cent next year, before returning to 2.5 or 2.6 per cent through 2029, DHL said.
“Despite all the headwinds, the [tracker] highlights the enduring strength of global trade,” said John Pearson, CEO of DHL Express, the courier division of the Bonn, Germany-based logistics giant. “We must never underestimate the creativity of buyers and sellers around the world who want to do business with each other.”
The report, produced with New York University’s Stern School of Business, was based on more than 20 million data points from over 25 sources.
“The data indicates that a reversal of globalisation is a risk but not a current reality,” the researchers said.
The report was prepared before US President Donald Trump’s threat on Friday of an additional 100 per cent tariff on all Chinese imports from November 1, in retaliation for Beijing’s expanded export curbs on rare earth materials and technologies a day earlier.
The trade slowdown in the first half was most pronounced in North America, where the annual growth projection for 2025 through 2029 was downgraded from January’s prediction of 2.7 per cent to 1.5 per cent. Forecasts for the Middle East, North Africa and Central and South America, which faced relatively mild US tariff increases, were revised upwards.
Although US tariffs and other trade barriers saw China’s share of US imports in the year’s first seven months fall to 9 per cent from 13 per cent in all of 2024 and 22 per cent in all of 2017, China was able to offset lower US-bound volumes with higher shipments to Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and other markets, the report said.

The value of China’s exports grew 7.1 per cent year-on-year in the year’s first nine months, China Customs said on Monday, the same pace as in all of 2024.
Still, direct cross-border activities between geopolitical rivals such as China and the US, in addition to Russia and Western-allied economies, retreated sharply in recent years.
For example, the share of US trade, capital and information flows involving China fell by about 35 per cent since 2016, while the share of China’s flows involving the US declined by around 18 per cent, the study found.
Globally, geopolitics reshaped only a small portion of world trade, and goods were crossing the longest average distance on record – 4,990km – in the year’s first half, said Professor Steven Altman, director of the DHL Initiative on Globalisation at Stern.
The share of trade that was confined within geographic regions fell to a record low of 50.7 per cent in the six months, indicating greater globalisation, the report said. Meanwhile, new foreign direct investment also became less regional, and international mergers and acquisitions stayed at a stable level of regionalisation, it added, suggesting that tariffs did not make these activities less global in scope.
This was despite last year’s record-high number of active global geopolitical conflicts since World War II.
The report rated the total level of globalisation – measured by 14 types of trade, capital, information and people flows – at 25 per cent, almost unchanged since its record high in 2022.


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Global trade volume set to grow 2.5 per cent annually through 2029, roughly matching the rate in the past 10 years, research says


Global trade volume set to grow 2.5 per cent annually through 2029, roughly matching the rate in the past 10 years, research says.


Trump’s century-high tariffs will slow global trade growth, not kill it: DHL-NYU study

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Global trade volume set to grow 2.5 per cent annually through 2029, roughly matching the rate in the past 10 years, research says

Global trade volume set to grow 2.5 per cent annually through 2029, roughly matching the rate in the past 10 years, research says