International trade faces a stagnant decade lagging the world economy

International trade will grow more slowly than the global economy over most of the next decade as the war in Ukraine reshapes strategic alliances and alters the flow of cross-border commerce, a new report says.

World trade’s annual expansion rate will average 2.3% through 2031, compared with an increase in global gross domestic product of 2.5% on average each year over the same period, according to forecasts from Boston Consulting Group. 

Trade largely tracked the growth rate of world GDP during the decade preceding the pandemic. So the report predicts the worst stretch of stagnant globalization since the World Trade Organization was