WTO doubles 2026 goods trade forecast to 3.9% as AI hardware offsets Gulf losses
The World Trade Organization raised its forecast for global merchandise trade growth in 2026 to 3.9% on 8 October, more than double the 1.9% it projected in March, in its Global Trade Outlook and Statistics report. The upgrade reflects a first half in which goods trade volumes grew 3.5%, ahead of the WTO's expectations, even as the conflict in the Middle East disrupted energy shipments from the Gulf.
The revision is not uniform. The WTO cut its forecast for services trade volume growth this year to 3.3% from 4.8%, saying services and some regions were more exposed to the conflict. Growth in the value of services trade slowed from 14% year on year in the first quarter to 10% in the second, according to China Daily's account of the report, with digitally delivered services such as computer and financial services holding up best.
The engine of the goods upgrade is artificial intelligence. Trade in AI-enabling goods, including semiconductors and servers, rose 67% year on year in the first half and accounted for 47% of all merchandise trade growth over the period, the WTO said. Global container throughput rose 3.9% year on year from the start of the year to mid-July. The finding chimes with the International Monetary Fund's own calculation, published this week, that trade in AI-related goods grew 29% over 2023 to 2025 and lifted cumulative global trade growth to 8.3% from what would otherwise have been 4.6%.
The energy side of the ledger is stark. Middle Eastern crude oil exports fell about 24% year on year in the first half of 2026 and the region's LNG exports fell 47%, the WTO reported. Yet because other suppliers stepped up shipments, global crude exports declined only about 6% and global LNG exports about 1%. Fertiliser markets adjusted as alternative suppliers entered, and cargoes were rerouted through other ports and corridors.
WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the figures "reflect trade resilience in action", and argued that an integrated global economy and a rules-based trading system had given members the flexibility to keep essential goods flowing during the disruption. She also cautioned that access to emerging opportunities such as AI remains unequal across members. Deputy director-general Johanna Hill said that "vulnerabilities remain, and WTO members are working to address them".
For 2027 the WTO pencils in merchandise trade growth of 4.1% and a rebound in services trade to 6.4%, but it describes both as contingent on a timely resolution of the Middle East conflict. The organisation's accompanying macro assumptions put global GDP growth at 2.6% in 2026 and 2.9% in 2027 at market exchange rates, below the IMF's purchasing-power-weighted figures of 3.1% and 3.4%.
The report lands against a tariff backdrop that has shifted repeatedly this year, including the US Supreme Court's February ruling against emergency-powers tariffs and the subsequent reliance on other statutes. The WTO did not single out those measures in the material reviewed, but the services downgrade and the concentration of growth in a narrow category of AI hardware suggest the headline resilience rests on a thinner base than the 3.9% figure alone implies.
What to watch next: the WTO typically updates its outlook in the spring, and the IMF's Annual Meetings continue this week with the Global Financial Stability Report. Monthly container-throughput data and Gulf export volumes will show whether the first-half rerouting of energy and fertiliser flows is holding into the fourth quarter.
