Why 2026 is poised to be another rocky year for global trade

The global trading system, which is finishing up one of its most transformational years in the past century, heads into another, facing more challenges to stability and growth.

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Merchandise trade across the world held up relatively well through 2025, even as US President Donald Trump started erecting a tariff wall around the world’s largest economy.

Data cited this week by shipping industry veteran John McCown shows global container volumes grew 2.1 per cent in October from a year earlier.

Yet, beneath the overall resilience are shifting undercurrents: the US saw an 8 per cent contraction in inbound volumes, while imports into Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and India all showed robust growth.

"World container supply chains have already begun to adapt and reconfigure trading patterns," Mr McCown wrote in a research note on Dec 22. After the US in 2024 saw a 15.2 per cent gain in container imports for the full year, "to say that the annual total for 2025 will be in diametric contrast is an understatement".

Mr Trump’s trade threats were among the chief reasons for the rewiring of shipments, according to Mr McCown.

If 2025 was the year of the tariff, then 2026 will be the year of tariff consequences, he wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Other experts in recent weeks have said they anticipate more trade turmoil in the year ahead, with these four issues among the most widely discussed.

REVISITING FREE TRADE DEAL

The US, Canada and Mexico are about to start reviewing the North American free trade deal that took effect in 2020. The negotiations will take the three nations into “new territory” given the novelty of the provision allowing for an update after just six years, according to comments by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to lawmakers in December.

Mr Greer said the government received more than 1,500 responses during the public comment period ahead of the coming review.