A passenger photographed asleep inside a New York Subway train at the Jamaica Center subway station, in Queens, New York, April 7, 2025. /VCG
Editor's note: He Weiwen is a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
The WTO and IMF issued their latest world trade outlook and world economic outlook earlier this week. Both considerably scaled down the world trade and world economic growth estimates due to the frenzied yet erratic worldwide tariff measures by the Trump administration. The WTO has estimated global merchandise trade volume to fall 0.2 percent in 2025, compared to 2.9 percent growth in 2024. The IMF scaled down the world output growth to 2.8 percent in 2025, compared to 3.3 percent in its previous estimate just three months ago.
Ironically, the largest contributor to the fall is the US itself, which has set the tariff war in motion. North America's imports are projected to fall by 12.6 percent, by far the largest; and the US GDP growth rate is estimated at 1.8 percent for 2025, revised down 0.9 percentage point down from IMF's January estimate.
A recent article in the Argentine Newspaper Clarin holds that Trump's unilateral tariffs will only lead to a fall in US trade with other countries. The Frankfurter Zeitung, a leading German newspaper, also states that "The US is not that important".
There are two fundamental reasons behind this. First, the US is no longer in a position where it's dominating world trade. It accounts for a small share in total world trade. The high tariff wall in the US will only lead to a world trade flow shift to other destinations.
A van carrier of terminal operator Eurogate passes between stacked containers at the container terminal of Port Bremerhaven, Germany, April 22, 2025. /VCG
The US also accounts for less than one-seventh of global imports with the share still falling. According to WTO statistics, total world merchandise imports reached $24.23 trillion in 2024, and the US accounted for 13.9 percent. In other words, 86.1 percent of total world merchandise trade was not exported into the US. In comparison, Europe and Asia are the world's two largest trading areas. The EU accounted for 35.8 percent of the world's total imports and Asia for 31.7 percent. The latter two, both in Eastern Hemisphere, had a combined share of two-thirds of the world total, or five times that of the US. Sixty-one percent of total EU exports is comprised of intra-EU trade, while intra-RCEP trade among 15 members (ASEAN plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand) reached $5.6 trillion in 2023, all to which US tariffs are irrelevant. Exports from economies in Asia, Europe and other continents, can find alternate markets. On the other hand, the US share in world imports has been falling over the past 21 years by 3.3 percentage points. It will undoubtedly fall to under 12 percent if the tariff war persists.
The US is a minor importer in all the world's major trading categories. According to a WTO report, in 2023, it accounted for only 8.3 percent in global iron and steel imports, compared to 34 percent by Europe. It accounted for 15.1 percent of global office and telecom equipment imports and 15.6 percent of global manufactures imports. The US share in global automobile imports was higher, at 20.4 percent, still far behind Europe (36.4 percent); and its share in EV imports was minimal.
It shows that while US unilateral tariffs threaten global exporters, the latter could also find alternate markets.
Empty egg shelves and a sign limiting purchases to one carton per customer are seen at a grocery store in New York, United States, April 16, 2025. / VCG
Second, the global multilateral trading system, with the WTO at the center, is firm and effective, supporting continuous trade flows among its members other than the US.
World trade today is governed by a comprehensive multilateral trading system, plus 374 free trade agreements, regional, cross-regional or bilateral. The complete network of current multilateral trading system is powerful and effective. The US is only one of the 166 members of the WTO. As a single economy, the US is unable to shatter the global multilateral trading system. 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the WTO. Since its inception, world trade volume has grew fivefold. The low-income developing economies have benefited in particular. The share in global exports by middle- and low-income countries has increased from 17 percent to 34 percent, and the population in poverty fell from 40 percent of total population to ten percent. The other 165 WTO members, undoubtedly, support and uphold the WTO and could continue free, open and non-discriminative trade among themselves.
We can expect that the Trump tariff war will lead to a new expansion of non-US trade among Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Gulf region, and intra-trade within each of the areas. In the end, the US will be further sidelined by the multilateral trading system and by world trade.
The "Liberation Day" worldwide "reciprocal tariffs" were paused just after one week, and there is no 'Kneeling' by all the 57 countries and regions in negotiation. Also, the Trump administration has no more tools in the face of China's resolute retaliation. At home, there have been strong protests across the nation and sharp falls in Wall Street stock and bond markets. The Trump administration has no choice but to stop the absurd and disastrous "reciprocal" tariff game. The sooner, the better.