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Qatar National Bank said in its weekly analysis that global trade is shifting from a phase of rapid globalisation toward a more fragmented reality, a trajectory spanning a full generation that began with hyper-globalisation in the first decade of the millennium. The bank reviewed three distinct phases in the evolution of international commerce, starting with rapid expansion in the 2000s before moving into slower growth after the global financial crisis and now entering a period marked by rising protectionism that is reshaping trade geography. According to the bank, this change has not dismantled trade or supply chains but has prompted their reconfiguration alongside new agreements, with strategic and geopolitical considerations exerting greater influence over a system once guided by clearer rules.
Between 2000 and 2024 world trade in goods and services nearly quadrupled while the ratio of trade to global output climbed to a peak of around 60 percent in 2008, QNB figures show. The bank identified the global financial crisis as a major turning point that ended the era of hyper-globalisation and ushered in slower trade expansion. Following the sharp collapse and subsequent rebound in 2009 and 2010, trade growth settled into a markedly slower pace with the ratio of trade growth to global output growth falling from roughly two-to-one before the crisis to around one-to-one afterwards.
QNB noted that the most consequential recent phase has involved a surge in protectionism that is altering the map of global commerce. Data from Global Trade Alert cited by the bank indicate the number of new trade-restrictive measures introduced worldwide roughly doubled between the decade ending in 2010 and the decade ending in 2020, rising from around 3,000 measures per year to around 6,000. The bank said emerging markets have expanded their share of total global trade from roughly one-quarter in the early 2000s to about 40 percent at present, contributing to the geographic reorientation of flows.
A Bank for International Settlements assessment found evidence of trade fragmentation particularly in stalled bilateral exchanges between the United States and China alongside relocation of some supply chains toward Southeast Asia, Mexico and other emerging economies. The assessment observed that while global value chains have adjusted, many production networks remain deeply integrated rather than fully decoupled. Such patterns align with the redirection toward more reliable partners described in the QNB report.
QNB warned that advancing fragmentation along geopolitical lines can elevate costs, reduce efficiency and place downward pressure on productivity and worldwide growth, with emerging economies dependent on open markets especially exposed. The bank pointed to the resilience of integration forces including market pressures, legal constraints and corporate adaptability that continue to support a multipolar trading system. An Economist Intelligence Unit report on trade in transition similarly documented how businesses are pursuing friendshoring and supply-chain diversification without abandoning globalisation entirely, identifying non-aligned nations such as the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, India and Brazil as relative beneficiaries.
