Economics
The Pain Trade: How Slumping Commerce Threatens Global Growth
- Trade no longer growing twice as fast as economic expansion
- WTO cuts trade forecast to 2.8% versus 5% average since 1995
Shipping containers sit stacked among gantry cranes in this aerial photograph taken above the BNCT Co. container terminal at Busan New Port in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. South Korea is scheduled to release trade figures on Aug. 1.
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The world’s biggest economies are finding it increasingly hard to trade their way out of trouble.
Once the grease of global growth, international commerce failed to rebound completely from the 2009 recession and now is slowing anew. Chinese exports tumbled 5.5 percent in August from a year earlier, while those of the U.S. fell 3.5 percent. South Korea and Singapore witnessed double digit declines.