The Consequences of Trump’s Trade War May Arrive in 2026
Get caught up.
A container ship sails southbound to exit the Suez Canal in 2023. A return of container traffic to the Red Sea is one of many changes to global trade coming in the new year.
Source: Bloomberg
The global trading system was turned upside down by President Donald Trump in 2025. The new year promises to reveal the results of that upheaval, along with more challenges to stability and growth as American trade threats rewire the world.
Merchandise traffic across the globe held up relatively well this year even as Trump started erecting a tariff wall around the US. Yet beneath the overall resilience, the US saw a 8% contraction in inbound volumes while imports into Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and India all showed robust growth.