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Tariffs cause 'unprecedented' disruption to global trade rules, WTO chief says
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 2, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 2, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
WTO chief warns of significant disruption to global trade rules due to tariffs, with trade on WTO terms dropping to 72%. Future impacts anticipated as trade growth forecasts rise.
By Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) -The share of global trade done on WTO terms has fallen to 72% and could fall further, amid the biggest disruption to the international trading system in the past 80 years, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization said on Tuesday.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump started imposing higher import tariffs this year on most of the United States' trading partners, the share of global trade conducted under the WTO's 'most favoured nation' (MFN) terms is down from about 80%, WTO data shows. The principle requires WTO members to treat others equally.
"We're experiencing the largest disruption to global trade rules, unprecedented in the past 80 years," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters in an interview at the start of her second term at the helm of the Geneva-based trade watchdog.
"So it's not surprising that some would question the global trading system... and predictability," she said, adding: "As long as the majority of trade is taking place on MFN terms, I think we should celebrate that. We're a long way from 50%."
Okonjo-Iweala warned that world trade could experience the effects of tariffs "later down the line" into 2026 as the recent surge in global commerce - driven by frontloading of goods during the first half of the year - begins to subside.
This contributed to the WTO raising its global trade growth forecast from 0.2% to 0.9% in August.
"Possibly down the line, we'll begin to see some other impacts, as the goods in the warehouses are exhausted, and impacts begin to come in, but we'll see next year. We still anticipate some growth," she said.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
The share of global trade done on WTO terms has fallen to 72%.
She stated that we are experiencing the largest disruption to global trade rules, unprecedented in the past 80 years.
The WTO raised its global trade growth forecast from 0.2% to 0.9% in August due to recent changes.
She warned that the effects of tariffs could be felt later down the line into 2026 as goods in warehouses are exhausted.
Okonjo-Iweala emphasized that as long as the majority of trade is on MFN terms, there is a basis for maintaining predictability in trade.
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