By Kimberley Kao

Global trade defied tariffs in the first half of the year, growing at the fastest pace in about 15 years, according to a tracker compiled by DHL and the NYU Stern School of Business.

Even with U.S. tariffs at highs not seen since the 1930s, trade has kept flowing, the logistics giant said in a report compiled with researchers from the New York business school.

The tracker, which analyzes more than 20 million data points from over 25 public, private, and academic sources, found that international trade grew faster over January-June than in any half-year since 2010, excluding the pandemic rebound.

A major catalyst has been a rush among buyers to lock in purchases before the start of tariffs announced by the Trump administration. But even after the front-loading wave in the U.S. ebbed, global trade volumes remained above prior-year levels during the first half, the report said.

Another reason trade can keep growing even as the U.S. hikes duties is that only 13% of global goods imports went to America in 2024 and just 9% of exports came from the country, the report said.

China, for example, has offset a slump in shipments to the U.S. with increased exports to other markets like Southeast Asia, Africa, and the EU.

Chinese customs data earlier this week showed that exports rose at the fastest pace in six months in September. While U.S.-bound shipments fell 27.0% on year in September, exports to other major trading partners continued to post double-digit gains.

The impact of higher U.S. tariffs on China is likely to be limited as direct shipments to the U.S. now only make up about 10% of China's total exports, said Zichun Huang, an economist at Capital Economics.

It will be key to watch how U.S.-China tensions develop, given a recent escalation in frictions, including President Trump threatening a 100% additional tariff on China, and Beijing's curbs on rare-earths exports.

"While it would be a mistake to disregard current policy threats to globalization, companies are not generally pulling back from international markets," said Steven A. Altman, director of the DHL Initiative on Globalization at NYU Stern's Center for the Future of Management.

Uncertainty deterred some cross-border investment but there's no trend of companies redirecting funds from foreign to domestic markets, the report found. There has been no major split of the world economy between geopolitical blocs.

According to the report, global trade is projected to keep growing. It forecasts a 2.5% annualized growth rate in global trade volumes from 2025 to 2029--roughly matching the pace set the previous decade.

There's a possibility of deglobalization as tariffs drive supply chain realignments, but that's "not today's reality," the report said.

Write to Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 14, 2025 06:25 ET (10:25 GMT)

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