WTO goods trade forecast figures published on Thursday 8 October 2026 show world merchandise trade growing about twice as fast this year as the organisation’s economists expected in March. The World Trade Organization now projects merchandise trade volume growth of 3.9% in 2026, up from 1.9% in its March baseline, and 4.1% in 2027, up from 2.6%. The reason is simple to state and harder to digest: spending on artificial intelligence hardware has pulled in so many imported chips and servers that it has more than cancelled out the damage from the Middle East conflict.
The same report cut the outlook for services. Commercial services trade is now expected to grow 3.3% in 2026, down from 4.8%, because the war that broke out in March has disrupted shipping, aviation and tourism in a region that acts as a hub for all three. Reuters summed up the upgraded WTO goods trade forecast as the AI boom offsetting “Middle East disruption”.
This article explains what changed between March and October, how much of the WTO goods trade forecast upgrade comes from AI-enabling goods, how supply chains absorbed the oil, gas and fertiliser shock, why services lost ground, which regions win and lose, and what the numbers mean for UK businesses buying hardware, energy and freight. All figures come from the WTO’s own release and the full report behind the WTO goods trade forecast unless stated otherwise.
Table of contents
- What the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Says Now
- How the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Absorbed the Middle East Energy Shock
- Fertiliser and Shipping Shocks Behind the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
- Why Services Fell While the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Rose
- Oil Prices, Jet Fuel and the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
- Inside the AI Trade Boom Behind the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
- Who Makes and Who Buys AI-Enabling Goods
- Regional Winners and Losers in the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
- US-China Decoupling and the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
- Why the March WTO Goods Trade Forecast Was Too Cautious
- Risks That Could Knock the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Off Course
- What the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Means for UK Businesses
- Frequently Asked Questions About the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
- References and Further Reading
What the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Says Now
The new numbers come from the October update of the WTO’s “Global Trade Outlook and Statistics”, which the organisation released in Geneva with a press release headlined “AI boom and trade resilience to Middle East crisis lift outlook, but gains to be uneven”. The higher WTO goods trade forecast rests on hard data rather than hope. Merchandise trade volume grew 3.5% year on year in the first half of 2026, well ahead of what the March projection implied.
In value terms the jump was larger still. The US dollar value of world merchandise trade rose 15% in the first half, against 3.5% in volume, which the WTO calls one of the widest gaps between value and volume growth in recent years. Higher fuel prices and more expensive electronic components for data centres explain most of that difference.
The March and October WTO goods trade forecast side by side
The table compares the March 2026 baseline with the October 2026 update. The goods and services combined figure is the WTO’s own approximation.
| Indicator (volume growth) | March 2026 baseline | October 2026 update | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merchandise trade, 2026 | 1.9% | 3.9% | +2.0 points |
| Merchandise trade, 2027 | 2.6% | 4.1% | +1.5 points |
| Commercial services trade, 2026 | 4.8% | 3.3% | -1.5 points |
| Commercial services trade, 2027 | 5.1% | 6.4% | +1.3 points |
| Goods and services combined, 2026 | 2.7% | about 3.7% | +1.0 point |
| World GDP, 2026 | 2.8% | 2.6% | -0.2 points |
| World GDP, 2027 | 2.8% | 2.9% | +0.1 point |
The striking line is the gap between trade and output. GDP growth was trimmed, yet the WTO goods trade forecast was doubled. That only makes sense if the extra demand is unusually import-hungry, which is exactly what AI infrastructure is.
AI-enabling goods supplied almost half the growth
Demand for AI-enabling goods such as semiconductors and servers accounted for 47% of global merchandise trade growth in value terms in the first half of 2026, the WTO says. Trade in those products rose 67% year on year, accelerating from already rapid growth in 2024 and 2025. Without that single category, the WTO goods trade forecast would look far closer to the cautious March picture.
What Okonjo-Iweala and Staiger said
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called the numbers “trade resilience in action”, adding that “some have felt the shock more than others, and not everyone can access emerging opportunities like AI.” Chief economist Robert Staiger told the Wall Street Journal the acceleration in AI trade was unexpected: “In fact, it’s accelerated. That’s a surprise to us.”
How the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Absorbed the Middle East Energy Shock
When the March outlook was written, the conflict had only just begun. The WTO said hostilities broke out in March, and the first-quarter data barely captured them. The October update is the first to use trade statistics through the second quarter, which fully reflect the shock.
The shock was severe. Before the conflict, roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day transited the Strait of Hormuz, according to International Energy Agency figures quoted in the report. The WTO’s March release said traffic through the strait collapsed from 138 commercial vessels a day to almost zero. Its Strait of Hormuz trade portal now tracks the disruption commodity by commodity.
Other suppliers filled most of the gap
Middle East crude oil exports fell roughly 24% year on year in the first half of 2026, but global crude exports fell only about 6%, because the United States, Norway and Brazil raised production and shipments. The LNG picture is even more striking: Middle East exports of liquefied natural gas fell about 47%, while global LNG shipments slipped only around 1% as Malaysia, Norway and Angola increased output.
Pipelines, stock draws and lower demand
The WTO lists the other buffers. An estimated 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels a day were diverted through Saudi Arabia’s pipeline to the Red Sea and the United Arab Emirates’ pipeline to Fujairah. Demand fell by about 5.5 million barrels a day in the second quarter, and commercial and strategic stock draws added close to 4 million barrels a day. Those buffers are finite, which matters for the 2027 WTO goods trade forecast.
The Middle East’s own trade collapsed
None of that resilience helped the region itself. Middle East export volumes went from 13.9% growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 to -9.5% in the first quarter of 2026 and -27.7% in the second. Imports fell from 4.5% growth to -11.8% and then -19.7%. Exports fell harder because they have fewer routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, especially LNG, which moves almost entirely by sea.
Fertiliser and Shipping Shocks Behind the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
Fertiliser was the second commodity shock that the WTO goods trade forecast had to absorb. In 2024 the Gulf region supplied 24.8% of global exports of nitrogenous fertilisers and 11.4% of phosphatic fertilisers, and the WTO’s March release noted that around one-third of the world’s fertiliser exports normally pass through the strait. After the conflict began, outbound fertiliser shipments through Hormuz came to a near standstill.
Prices reacted fast. Monthly urea prices more than doubled to around US$ 850 a tonne in April 2026, before falling back to the pre-conflict level of about US$ 400 a tonne in July. Phosphate prices rose 25% to around US$ 780 a tonne and stayed high through August.
Export restrictions doubled, then supply adjusted
Governments responded with farm support and, in some cases, export curbs. The share of global fertiliser exports subject to restrictive measures doubled to 15%, or 23% if the closure of Hormuz is counted as a de facto restriction. Yet between March and June, global imports of nitrogenous fertilisers were only 2.8% below their 2023 to 2025 average for the same months, and phosphatic imports were 2.2% higher, as suppliers outside the Gulf stepped in.
| Shock indicator | Figure reported by the WTO |
|---|---|
| Brent crude before the conflict | About US$ 70 a barrel |
| Brent crude peak (8 April 2026) | US$ 138 a barrel |
| Brent after the June US-Iran memorandum | About US$ 75, now back near US$ 100 |
| European natural gas (TTF) | Above US$ 21 per MMBtu, highest since 2022 |
| Urea, April 2026 to July 2026 | About US$ 850 a tonne, back to about US$ 400 |
| Phosphate | Up 25% to about US$ 780 a tonne |
| Fertiliser exports under restrictions | 15%, or 23% counting the Hormuz closure |
| Global container throughput, year to July | Up 3.9% |
Containers kept moving, but momentum stalled
Container ports tell a mixed story. The RWI/ISL Global Container Throughput Index peaked in February 2026 and had fallen 2.5% by July, including a 4.0% drop at Chinese ports. Even so, year-to-date throughput through July was up 3.9%, almost exactly the new WTO goods trade forecast for 2026. Some economies gained from rerouting: Pakistan’s sea freight transport exports rose 73% in the first half, and trans-shipment at Colombo in Sri Lanka rose 11% in the first eight months.
Why Services Fell While the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Rose
Services are where the conflict did the damage that the WTO goods trade forecast escaped. “Services are not as impacted by the AI boom, and they’re quite impacted by the Middle East conflict,” Staiger told the Wall Street Journal. Commercial services trade grew 14% year on year in value terms in the first quarter of 2026, but only 10% in the second.
Travel took the hardest hit. In March, international passengers carried by Middle Eastern airlines fell 61% year on year, according to IATA data quoted by the WTO, while direct passenger traffic between Europe and Asia rose 29% as journeys shifted away from Gulf hubs. Travellers’ spending abroad grew just 5% in the second quarter, down from 15% in the first, and UN Tourism data show international arrivals fell 0.8% in the second quarter.
The services forecast by sector
| Sector (export volume) | 2025 actual | 2026 March baseline | 2026 October | 2027 October |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transport | 0.5% | 2.6% | 0.9% | 4.6% |
| Travel | 5.2% | 3.9% | 0.2% | 9.2% |
| Other commercial services | 6.6% | 5.7% | 4.8% | 6.2% |
| Digitally delivered services | 5.7% | 5.6% | 4.8% | 6.3% |
| All commercial services | 5.3% | 4.8% | 3.3% | 6.4% |
Digital services held up
Digitally delivered services kept growing. Computer services exports rose 18% year on year in the first quarter and an estimated 12% in the second, and financial services exports grew 14% in the second quarter. That is the services side of the same AI story: software and cloud spending shows up in services trade even as the hardware shows up in the WTO goods trade forecast.
Europe carries services growth
Europe is expected to post the fastest services export growth in 2026, at 4.6%, followed by Asia at 4.0% and Africa at 3.1%. North America and the CIS are both forecast at 1.7%, and South and Central America at 1.3%, while Middle East services exports are projected to shrink 10.3%. If that holds, the WTO says, Europe will account for more than half of world services trade growth this year, in sharp contrast to its weak showing in goods.
Oil Prices, Jet Fuel and the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
The energy shock is not over, and the report behind the WTO goods trade forecast is blunt about it. Brent crude peaked at US$ 138 a barrel on 8 April, up from about US$ 70 before the conflict. It fell back to around US$ 75 after the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June, then climbed back to around US$ 100. In September, oil flows diverted through the Red Sea were interrupted by further escalation.
Refinery bottlenecks widen the crack spread
A second problem sits downstream. Refinery capacity has been constrained all year, so the gap between crude oil and refined products such as petrol and jet fuel, known as the crack spread, has been unusually wide. The jet fuel spread at one point exceeded the levels seen at the start of the war in Ukraine, and it is far above the roughly US$ 5 a barrel typical of the 1990s and early 2000s.
That matters because consumers pay refined prices, not crude prices. The WTO estimates that the elevated spread is an additional drag on import growth, beyond the crude price shock alone, of 0.22 percentage points in Asia, 0.14 points in North America and 0.06 points in Europe.
Inflation and interest rates
Before the conflict, global headline inflation for 2026 was projected to fall to 3.7%. That projection has been raised to 4.7%, ending a three-year disinflation trend, and market interest rates are rising with it. Our coverage of the ECB’s second rate rise of 2026 showed how this is already feeding through to European borrowing costs.
European gas is the regional risk to watch
European natural gas prices recently rose above US$ 21 per million British thermal units, their highest since the 2022 spike after Russia invaded Ukraine. The WTO warns that slower European growth could cut import demand and have an outsized effect on world trade, given Europe’s large share of it. That is one of the clearest downside risks to the WTO goods trade forecast.
Inside the AI Trade Boom Behind the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
The analytical chapter attached to the WTO goods trade forecast is the most useful part for anyone in technology. It measures trade in “AI-enabling goods”, a basket of raw materials, intermediate inputs and finished products that support AI systems, from critical minerals and chemicals through chips and lithography tools to servers, power, cooling and networking equipment for data centres.
The WTO notes that “AI is a capability rather than a product, and no customs code says ‘AI’.” For this update it revised the list of product codes first proposed in its World Trade Report 2025, dropping general-purpose goods and construction inputs that look AI-driven only in US data. The new list is narrower but better targeted.
From one-twelfth to one-seventh of world trade
After falling 10% in 2023, trade in AI-enabling goods grew 16% in 2024, 31% in 2025 and 67% in the first half of 2026. Its share of world merchandise trade, broadly flat between 7.1% in 2016 and 8.0% in 2023, reached 14.8% in the first half of 2026. Office and telecom equipment, the product group that contains much of it, rose 49% in value, more than double its 21% growth in 2025.
Part of the boom is price, not volume
The WTO is careful to say that these are values, not volumes. Unit prices for advanced accelerators and memory have risen steeply, and European Central Bank estimates put import price growth for AI-enabling goods at about 10% in 2025 and 20% to 30% in the first half of 2026. So some of the 67% reflects more expensive and more capable hardware rather than more boxes crossing borders.
Why AI investment is so import-heavy
AI capital spending pulls in imports in a way most investment does not. The WTO notes that residential construction has an import content of about 2%, while the foreign content of computer and electronic equipment manufacturing in North America is more than 20 percentage points higher than construction’s. A single AI server rack contains over 4,500 chips, and chips account for more than half the value of building and operating a data centre, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
The report also lists other drivers of the IT investment cycle: quantum computing, cloud migration, cybersecurity and the steady growth of digital services. For a deeper look at what all that data centre capacity costs in power and water, see our report on the environmental threat of data centres.
Hyperscaler spending keeps rising
The WTO cites estimates of US hyperscaler AI capital expenditure in 2026 of US$ 660 billion to US$ 690 billion from Futurum Group and US$ 725 billion to US$ 765 billion from Goldman Sachs Research, the latter a 77% increase on 2025. The United States accounts for between two-thirds and three-quarters of global spending. Global AI infrastructure spending is expected to rise at least 30% in 2026, and market analysts expect AI capital expenditure to grow another 10% to 20% in 2027.
Who Makes and Who Buys AI-Enabling Goods
The AI trade boom that lifted the WTO goods trade forecast is highly concentrated. In 2025 the ten largest traders of AI-enabling goods accounted for about 85% of world exports and 80% of world imports, and concentration rose further in 2026. Concentration is about twice as high as for merchandise trade overall.
| Region (2025) | Share of AI-enabling goods exports | Share of all goods exports |
|---|---|---|
| East Asia excluding China | 40.4% | 10.8% |
| Southeast Asia | 23.2% | 8.1% |
| China | 13.6% | 14.4% |
| North America | 11.5% | 13.0% |
| Europe | 10.6% | 35.5% |
Asia supplies, North America buys
In the second quarter of 2026, AI-enabling exports grew 80%, with East Asia contributing 32.3 percentage points, Southeast Asia 22.0, China 12.8, North America 7.8 and Europe 3.9. On the import side, North America contributed 18.5 points of 70% growth. The four East Asian economies of Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong (China), mainland China and the Republic of Korea account for more than half of all exports, and Mexico and Viet Nam are rising fast from a lower base.
Europe’s small share despite ASML
Europe’s share of AI-enabling imports, at 12.3%, is about a third of its 35.9% share of all goods imports. The WTO points out that Europe hosts one of the most critical nodes in the whole chain, ASML in the Netherlands, the sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography systems. But lithography and other upstream equipment carry modest trade value compared with chips and servers, and Europe’s own data centre build-out is small relative to its economy.
The value chain in three layers
By value, AI-enabling trade in 2025 split into chemicals and minerals (1%), intermediate inputs (62%) and equipment (37%). Equipment divides into semiconductor manufacturing equipment (5%) and compute and infrastructure equipment (32%), the finished hardware installed in data centres. Demand for that finished hardware is dominated by the United States (33%) and Europe (23%), while China buys heavily in every other category, which the WTO reads as a sign of its domestic AI build-up.
Regional Winners and Losers in the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
The headline 3.9% in the WTO goods trade forecast hides very different regional stories. Asian economies are expected to contribute 4.0 percentage points of the 3.9% global growth in 2026, more than the whole increase, for the third year running. North America adds 0.5 points and Europe 0.1, while “Rest of World” subtracts 0.7 points because of the collapse in Middle East trade.
| Region | Exports 2026 | Imports 2026 | GDP 2026 | Exports 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia | 9.9% | 9.5% | 4.3% | 5.2% |
| North America | 5.7% | 1.4% | 2.0% | 1.5% |
| Africa | 5.6% | 8.9% | 4.1% | -0.7% |
| South and Central America | 3.4% | 4.6% | 2.5% | 3.4% |
| Europe | -0.1% | 0.5% | 1.3% | 1.8% |
| CIS | -3.9% | 8.8% | 1.7% | 5.3% |
| Middle East | -17.2% | -15.4% | -4.0% | 23.3% |
North American imports are stronger than they look
North America’s 1.4% import forecast understates underlying demand, the WTO argues. Imports fell 3.2% in the first half of 2026, mostly because importers had front-loaded purchases ahead of US tariff rises in 2025. The fall was concentrated in the first quarter, at -10.6%; by the second quarter imports were up 5.3% year on year, with annualised quarter-on-quarter growth of 10.1%.
The Middle East rebound depends on peace
The 23.3% rebound pencilled in for Middle East exports in 2027 assumes the conflict does not extend into next year. The WTO says plainly that if that premise proves wrong, 2027 growth “could diverge substantially from the current forecast”. Middle East GDP is projected to fall 4.0% in 2026, the only regional contraction in the table.
Least-developed countries did better than expected
Merchandise trade of least-developed countries outperformed the world in the first half of 2026, with exports up 25% and imports up 20% in value terms. Commodity prices did much of the work: the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s exports rose 50% on copper, Uganda’s 35% on gold and Angola’s 29% on fuels.
US-China Decoupling and the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
The WTO goods trade forecast report has better news on geopolitical blocs than many feared. Trade between hypothetical blocs of countries with similar political positions, measured by United Nations voting patterns, has grown more slowly than trade within them since the war in Ukraine began. But the gap narrowed in 2025 and into 2026, suggesting bloc-based fragmentation is no longer intensifying.
US-China decoupling is the exception, and it is now the main driver of whatever divergence remains. US imports from China fell 29% in 2025, cutting China’s share of US imports from 13.8% to 9.3%, against more than 20% before 2018. Trade between the two appears to have stabilised slightly in 2026 after a partial easing of tensions, which we covered in our report on the China-US tariff cut.
Tariffs, rules and resilience
The strength of trade is all the more notable because 2025 brought the largest increase in US tariffs in a century, as the Wall Street Journal noted. Staiger credited the rules-based system: “Members having stable tariffs allow firms to plan and re-route. It’s a very good illustration of the importance of the system holding.” The WTO naturally has an interest in that argument, but the rerouting of oil, LNG and fertiliser flows described above is real evidence for it.
Why the March WTO Goods Trade Forecast Was Too Cautious
The 2026 number has moved a long way in a year. In October 2025, before the Middle East conflict, the WTO projected merchandise trade growth of just 0.5% in 2026, expecting tariffs and a cooling economy to bite. By March 2026 the baseline had risen to 1.9%, with a range from 1.4% if energy prices stayed high to 2.4% if AI spending stayed strong.
Both March scenarios happened at once
In its March release, the WTO said that if energy prices stayed high and AI trade kept surging, the two effects might roughly cancel and growth would “track closer to the baseline scenario”. The October report says both did materialise, “but the influence of AI ended up being stronger than expected.” The earlier forecasts had assumed AI goods trade would slow. “In fact, it’s accelerated,” Staiger said.
The 2025 baseline was revised down
One detail is easy to miss. In March, the WTO put 2025 merchandise trade growth at 4.6%, based on data available on 10 March. The October table puts it at 4.2%. Applying the new WTO goods trade forecast for 2026 and 2027 to that revised base, volumes would be about 12.7% higher in 2027 than in 2024 (1.042 × 1.039 × 1.041). The Wall Street Journal called that a multi-year pace “last seen in the years before the crisis of 2008 and 2009”.
Comparing AI figures across releases
Readers comparing one WTO goods trade forecast release with the next should note that the AI numbers are not like for like. The March release said AI-enabling goods rose 21.9% in 2025 to US$ 4.18 trillion and supplied 42% of trade growth, using the original product list. The October report uses the revised, narrower list, which gives 31% growth in 2025. Both lists tell the same story; the figures just cannot be mixed.
Risks That Could Knock the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Off Course
The WTO lists its own risks, and Reuters summarised them as weaker household purchasing power from higher fuel and fertiliser costs, the Strait of Hormuz, Russia’s war in Ukraine and any slowdown in AI investment. Each one maps directly onto a part of the WTO goods trade forecast upgrade.
An AI investment slowdown
The biggest upside driver is also the biggest risk. Because AI infrastructure is so import-intensive, a slowdown or reversal in AI spending “could also have a significant impact on trade,” the report says. It also flags a wealth effect: semiconductor stocks now make up almost a fifth of the S&P 500’s value, a level of concentration not seen since the 1960s, and passive index funds overtook active funds in 2024. A sharp revaluation would hit household wealth as well as trade.
We looked at the market side of that question in our article on whether the AI chip stocks trade is still intact, and at how AI building projects are financed in our report on Oracle, Blue Owl and AI financing.
A longer conflict
The 2027 numbers assume a “timely resolution” of the Middle East conflict. The services rebound to 6.4% and the Middle East’s 23.3% export recovery both depend on it. The September interruption of Red Sea flows shows how quickly the buffers that saved the 2026 WTO goods trade forecast can be tested.
Leading indicators still point up
Short-term indicators do not yet show the slowdown in AI demand that would threaten the WTO goods trade forecast. The technology new orders index stood at 53.3 for the world in August, with the United States at 55.8 and Europe at 54.2; only Asia cooled slightly, from 53.3 to 52.6. Services export orders are weaker in some economies, including Japan at 42.6, the United Kingdom at 48.0 and France at 41.3, which may signal exposure to the Middle East.
What the WTO Goods Trade Forecast Means for UK Businesses
For a UK business, the WTO goods trade forecast is less about the headline percentage and more about prices and lead times. Three effects stand out: AI hardware is getting more expensive, energy and freight costs remain elevated, and services exporters with Gulf exposure face a slower year.
| Exposure | What the WTO data shows | Practical step |
|---|---|---|
| Servers, GPUs and networking kit | AI-enabling import prices up 20% to 30% in early 2026; supply concentrated in a few Asian economies | Lock in hardware quotes early and plan refresh cycles a quarter ahead |
| Energy and data centre costs | Brent back near US$ 100; European gas above US$ 21 per MMBtu | Review hosting contracts for energy pass-through clauses |
| Freight and travel | Transport services growth cut to 0.9% and travel to 0.2% in 2026 | Budget for longer Europe-Asia routings and higher fares |
| Services exports | UK services export orders at 48.0 in August; Europe still leads services growth | Check how much revenue relies on Gulf clients or Gulf transit |
Hardware budgets and procurement
Anyone planning a server refresh or an on-premises AI project is buying into the tightest part of the market. The WTO’s own data show the United Kingdom’s merchandise imports up 17.2% in value in the first half of 2026, the third-fastest rise among the five largest importers. Our IT infrastructure team can help size workloads so that spending goes on the capacity you actually need.
Planning for two 2027 scenarios
The WTO goods trade forecast for 2027 is a single scenario that assumes peace in the Middle East. Sensible planning uses two: one where the conflict ends and prices ease, and one where it drags on and energy, freight and hardware stay expensive. Our technology consulting and AI strategy services can help build both into a roadmap.
Watch the data, not the headlines
The WTO publishes its trade statistics through the WTO Stats portal, and its Hormuz tracker updates daily. Following those two sources gives earlier warning than waiting for the next WTO goods trade forecast in the spring.
Frequently Asked Questions About the WTO Goods Trade Forecast
What is the WTO goods trade forecast for 2026?
The WTO expects world merchandise trade volume to grow 3.9% in 2026 and 4.1% in 2027. In March it had forecast 1.9% and 2.6%. Services trade is expected to grow 3.3% in 2026, down from 4.8%.
Why was the WTO goods trade forecast raised?
Trade in AI-enabling goods such as chips and servers rose 67% year on year in the first half of 2026 and supplied 47% of merchandise trade growth. At the same time, other suppliers replaced much of the oil, LNG and fertiliser lost from the Middle East.
Why was the services forecast cut?
The conflict disrupted transport and travel, two sectors that rely heavily on the Gulf as a hub. Transport growth is now forecast at 0.9% and travel at 0.2% for 2026.
Which regions gain most?
Asia leads, with forecast export growth of 9.9% and import growth of 9.5% in 2026. Middle East exports are forecast to fall 17.2%, and Europe’s goods exports to slip 0.1%.
What could change the WTO goods trade forecast?
A slowdown in AI investment, a longer Middle East conflict, high refined fuel prices and expensive European gas are the main risks the WTO identifies.
When is the next WTO goods trade forecast?
The two previous full outlooks were published in April 2025 and March 2026, so the next full WTO goods trade forecast is likely in spring 2027.
References and Further Reading
WTO: AI boom and trade resilience to Middle East crisis lift outlook, but gains to be uneven
WTO: Global Trade Outlook and Statistics, Update October 2026 (PDF)
Reuters via TradingView: WTO upgrades goods trade forecast as AI boom offsets Middle East disruption
WTO: Middle East conflict weighs further on slowing trade outlook (March 2026)
WTO: Global Trade Outlook and Statistics, March 2026 (PDF)
WTO: AI goods and frontloading lift world trade in 2025 but outlook dims for 2026
WTO: Strait of Hormuz and global trade
WTO: World Trade Report 2025, Making trade and AI work together
