International trade remains important

Nations with an open and free trade policy will make the most of the recovery in global trade

In the middle of 2022, international trade is being buffeted by a continuing global pandemic, a European war, widespread economic sanctions, battered supply chains and sudden national bans and caps on exports of essential commodities. Perhaps paradoxically, this may be the time to re-emphasise the critical importance of rule-based world trade for sustained global prosperity.

The growth of world trade has been nothing short of phenomenal since the Second World War. The World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that global goods trade expanded, in volume terms, by about 40 times (4,000 per cent!) between 1950 and 2020 and nearly 300 times in