Much has been written about how global trade is stalling, particularly since the U.S. Presidential elections. Some say that world trade has reached its limits; the evidence from the International Monetary Fund indicates that whereas trade from 1985 to 2007 grew at twice the rate of GDP, it has barely kept pace over the past four years.
There’s another way to look at the data. Firstly, trade grew more rapidly than GDP for many decades because of the initial boost from the implementation of the infrastructure, agreements, and other enabling elements of free trade since the Bretton-Woods conference in 1944.
