Africa-Press – Eritrea. The World Trade Organization (WTO) raised its forecast for global trade growth this year to 0.9% on Friday, warning that the US’ high tariffs will put pressure on trade in 2026.
The previous WTO report, published following US President Donald Trump’s “Independence Day” tariff announcements on April 2, predicted that tariffs would cause global trade to contract by 0.2% this year.
This forecast was significantly lower than the WTO’s estimate of 2.7% growth before tariffs were imposed. In its Friday update, the WTO revised its forecast for global trade contraction this year from 0.2% to 0.9% growth.
But this increase was largely due to the US importing goods in advance to avoid the impact of tariffs. In the first half of this year, the volume of imports in the US increased by 11% year-on-year.
A similar trend was observed in other countries’ imports due to concerns over retaliation. However, WTO economists warned that tariffs that came into effect this week would slow trade in the second half of this year and the next year. Economists also lowered their growth forecast for 2026 from 2.5% to 1.8%.
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