Last year was supposed to mark the moment international trade was dismantled. President Donald Trump's tariffs, we were told, were so unprecedented in scale and ambition that they might stop globalisation in its tracks.

Yet here we are in 2026, and the spreadsheets stubbornly refuse to tell the same story. According to the latest data from the UN's trade and development body, UNCTAD, in 2025 the value of global trade likely crossed $35 trillion for the first time in history. That's 7 per cent more than the previous year.

The White House can tax trade, but it can't shut it down. Technology, markets, and human ingenuity will stop that from happening.

Tariffs did have an impact, of course. The first half of 2025 saw panic-buying of various kinds, as importers front-loaded orders to get ahead of any tax shocks. It looked like companies were desperately trying to get their products across borders before politicians slammed the gates shut.

But that's not all that's going on. This isn't the 1930s, and goods aren't the only way that value crosses borders. Trade in services grew at 9 per cent. The global economy is dematerialising much faster than economic nationalists can........

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