2025 was tariff year for global trade, 2026 will be year of tariff consequences
Dec 30, 2025
The global trading system, which is finishing up one of its most transformational years of the century, heads into another facing more challenges to stability and growth. Trump’s trade threats were among the chief reasons for the rewiring of shipments, according to shipping industry veteran John McCown. If 2025 was the year of the tariff, he wrote, then 2026 will be the year of tariff consequences. Merchandise trade across the world held up relatively well through 2025, even as US President Donald Trump started erecting a tariff wall around the world’s largest economy. Data cited by McCown shows global container volumes grew 2.1% in October from a year earlier.
Yet beneath the overall resilience are shifting undercurrents. The US saw an 8% contraction in inbound volumes, while imports into Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and India all showed robust growth. World container supply chains have already begun to adapt and reconfigure trading patterns, McCown wrote in a research note. After the US in 2024 saw a 15.2% gain in container imports for the full year, to say that the annual total for 2025 will be in diametric contrast is an understatement, as per a report.
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