Growth and trade are uncertain. Modest growth is expected, but only if future shocks like the aff are avoided.
Bert Coljin and Rico Luman 23, Rico Luman is a senior sector economist with a focus on transport, logistics and the automotive industry. He also looks at ports economics and mobility in general. Formerly he worked as a credit analyst and joined ING in 2001. Rico studied economics as well as law at the University of Amsterdam, Bert Colijn is a Senior Economist at ING. He joined the firm in July 2015 and covers the global economy with a specific focus on the eurozone, "World trade to see big shifts and weaker growth in 2023," 4/20/2023, https://think.ing.com/articles/world-trade-to-see-big-shifts-and-weak-growth-in-2023/#a10
It’s too early to call the start of deglobalisation, but far from business as usual
Overall, world merchant trade is still digesting the effects of two major shocks seen in recent years. The pandemic extremes caused a lot of problems related to supply being curbed and demand overheating, these issues seem to be easing rapidly at the moment and we don’t expect supply-chain issues on the same scale as that seen in recent years anytime soon.
At the same time, geopolitical problems are heating up and are starting to have more of a structural impact on world trade. While deglobalisation is a hot topic right now, we don’t see much evidence for it actually happening. We do see that advanced economies are diversifying trade partners, mainly in the US, while in Europe, this trend is likely to take more time. But we still see this happening as higher trade barriers and continued geopolitical concerns are likely in the years ahead.
For the coming years, this means that we can expect just modest growth in world trade, hampered by geopolitical factors, but experiencing some improvement from the fading of pandemic effects.