The World Trade Organization said Thursday that it expected the global trade in goods to grow by 3.9 percent this year, almost double the rate it had forecast in March, as spending on expensive chips and other equipment needed to produce artificial intelligence boosts cross-border commerce.
The rapid trade in A.I. goods more than offset the drag on trade from the war in the Middle East and tariffs issued by the Trump administration. The W.T.O. expects trade growth to pick up slightly next year, accelerating to 4.1 percent.
Johanna Hill, a deputy director-general at the organization, said in a news conference Thursday that the resilience of the global economy and of trade had been “a striking feature of the past six months.”
Higher energy prices and shipping disruptions stemming from the war in Iran have created significant headwinds for companies seeking to trade. However, businesses and supply chains have adapted, and producers of energy and fertilizer in other regions have stepped in to replace disrupted supplies, she said.
The W.T.O. cautioned that the resilience was not uniform, and that some regions and sectors had been hit harder by the Middle Eastern war.
Robert Staiger, the organization’s chief economist, said that the conflict had taken a significant toll on trade particularly within the Middle East. The quantity of crude oil exported by the Middle East was down 24 percent in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, while exports of liquefied natural gas were down 47 percent.
But global trading systems have helped many countries weather the shock, he said. Countries outside of the region increased production and exports of energy and fertilizer to compensate for the loss of supply.
Trade in goods that enable A.I. also grew an astonishing 67 percent in the first half of 2026, accounting for about half of the increase in the value of the global trade in goods in the period.
In 2026, global trade was “shaped by two opposing forces: a Middle East conflict affecting services as much as goods, and an exceptionally strong wave of investment in A.I. infrastructure. So far, the second force has outweighed the first,” Mr. Staiger said.
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