Economics

World Trade Boom Sails Into 2018 as Trump Threatens Barriers

Flash PMIs for China’s trade partners show strong momentum
Renewed worries over Trump’s trade policies hang over outlook

Containers sit stacked in a yard at Krishnapatnam Port in Krishnapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India, on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Growth in gross domestic product slipped to a three-year low in the April-June quarter, muddying the near-term outlook, though the goods and services tax, or GST, is expected to boost productivity in the longer term.Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

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By Enda Curran and Andrew Mayeda

November 30, 2017 at 1:45 AM UTC

Updated on

November 30, 2017 at 5:00 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

It was meant to be the year of the trade war. Instead, it was the year of the trade boom.

As 2017 draws to a close, the International Monetary Fund is projecting the volume of trade in goods and services will have climbed 4.2 percent over the year, up from 2.4 percent in 2016. That would be the first time trade has outpaced output growth since 2014 and harks back to the pre-crisis days when such outperformance was a regular occurrence.