Twenty-twenty-five was the year global trade definitely did not die. But it changed in complex ways, some temporary (such as the frontloading of US imports in response to the threat of high tariffs), some likely to be permanent (such as the decline in direct trade between the US and China) and some in between (such as the boom in AI-related trade). Nevertheless, global trade in goods, the products targeted by the tariffs, has been strikingly robust, according to Geopolitics and the geometry of global trade: 2026 update, a preliminary evaluation of 2025 by the McKinsey Global Institute.
The report notes five noteworthy facets of what happened in 2025.