Global trade policy activity climbed to a series high in early 2026, with January-May activity nearly twice 2024 levels.
Restrictive measures are driving the latest rise, while trade-facilitating actions have lost relative momentum.
The WTO-IMF index points to broader policy pressure across G20 and non-G20 economies, affecting global supply-chain planning.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) said the index, developed in joint research by WTO and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists, draws on information on trade policy measures across a large number of economies and products. It uses records of a wide range of policy measures as signals of global trade policy activity, and draws primarily on the WTO Trade Monitoring Database and Global Trade Alert.
The WTO said trade policy activity rose gradually for more than a decade before accelerating from around 2020 onwards, reflecting increased use of trade policy for wider objectives such as industrial policy or security. Peaks were visible around the escalation of US-China tariffs in 2018-19, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the war in Ukraine in 2022, and renewed trade tensions in 2025.
The latest decomposition of the index shows that restrictive measures have climbed the most steeply of any category through 2025 and into 2026. Subsidies and other remaining measures have also increased more gradually, while facilitating measures (those that ease trade by reducing barriers or improving customs procedures) have accelerated more modestly.
Facilitating measures have lost relative momentum in recent years, except during the Strait of Hormuz crisis, when they represented over two-thirds of all measures taken, according to the WTO. The organisation said the recent rise in trade policy activity is broad-based, with non-G20 economies also rising markedly in the most recent period.
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