The World Trade Organization (WTO) has warned that raising new barriers to international trade could entail a heavy cost for the global economy. According to its estimates, global gross domestic product (GDP) could decrease by about 7% and exports by approximately 27% by 2050, in a context where geopolitical tensions continue to rise and put pressure on the multilateral trade system.
The studies conducted by the WTO conclude that the greater the obstacles to international exchanges, the greater the brake on economic growth will be. Thus, replacing multilateral cooperation with a framework of bilateral free trade agreements or regional block agreements as a general rule would, according to its calculations, have a negative impact of 6.9% on GDP and 26.9% on global exports.
In an alternative scenario, where the planet is fragmented into several trade blocks organized around geopolitical alignments, the WTO projects that global GDP would contract by 5.1%, while trade in goods and services abroad would fall by 18.6%.
These two assumptions oppose the scenario that the WTO itself calls a "reinforced cooperation" framework, in which the global economy would be boosted by an increase of 2.9% and the volume of exports would advance by 17.9%.
Thus, the organization concludes that "this implies that the difference between strengthened multilateral cooperation and the weakening of the WTO is approximately between 5% and 10% of global real GDP, according to the scenario".
The rise in geopolitical tensions has led to new measures affecting international trade and represents a direct challenge to the WTO's system of rules. The imposition of tariffs, bans on the exchange of certain goods, sanctions on companies and states, or restrictions on investment flows are making it difficult to maintain a stable multilateral framework.
In light of this situation, the WTO emphasizes that governments must balance geopolitical rivalries with the need for economic cooperation, since "when security fundamentals extend to various sectors and instruments, it becomes more complex and crucial the legitimate margin between trade policy and unilateral decision-making".
The report also warns that "national security and strategic autonomy are increasingly invoked to justify trade restrictions, which undermines the predictability of trade policy. Issues such as digital trade, artificial intelligence (AI), climate-related measures, industrial policy, subsidies, and state-owned enterprises are testing norms designed for an earlier era," according to the document from the WTO.